


Cuss and Hold On

by lifespossible



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Exchangelock AU Exchange 2014, Friends to Lovers, Greaserlock, M/M, Teenlock, exchangelock, lostinsherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-14
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-02-08 18:55:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1952379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifespossible/pseuds/lifespossible
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Really, if you thought about it, it was all Harry's fault. She was the one that went to the damned party. Although, perhaps John should thank her for that. Now that Godfrey Staunton's gone missing, Sherlock Holmes, the gorgeous, cigarette-smoking, fast-driving greaser might be the only person that can find him, if the police are as inept as Sherlock insists they are. And if John tags along by accident, it's simply to make sure everything goes smoothly. No matter what Harry says about the hands-on-the-waist thing.</p><p>Exchangelock AU Exchange 2014. Rating and tags will be updated as applied.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [edye327](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edye327/gifts).



> Many thanks to [nay](http://cptn-jhw.tumblr.com) for all the help. My exchangelock for [lostinsherlock](http://lostinsherlock.tumblr.com), who has been the most lovely understanding soul about outside conflicts. She asked for greaserlock, and, well, my mind kind of took off. Hope you like it, lovely.

Elvis Presley was crooning Blue Moon when John’s quiet night of studying was interrupted.

“Where on earth is Harriet?”

John looked up from his carefully written Biology notes. His mother was standing in the doorway to his room, leaning heavily on the wood. Even from three meters away, John could smell the whiskey on her. He glanced back down at his textbook, flipped a page, and pretended to copy down the finer details of DNA reproduction. “I don’t know,” he lied easily, not looking up. “She might be up on the roof again.”

He heard his mother’s angry exhale, then her heavy footsteps stomping down the hall and back into the living room. John waited until the slam of the door to their flat announced her departure, then vaulted out of his bed. He raced into the kitchen, and then was back in his room, perched at his desk and hunched over his notes when the door slammed again. Elvis had moved on to Tryin’ to Get Over You, but he had turned the volume down on the record player enough to hear the clink of glass in the kitchen. He waited until the murmur of the telly started before he lifted the needle off the record and turned the player off.

John padded out into the kitchen, then went through the motions of making a cup of tea.

“I wish you wouldn’t play that awful music,” his mother called to him as he passed. “That Elvis boy…” There was a drunken pause. “…Is simply disgraceful,” came the end of the sentence.

“It helps me study, Mum,” John said, not even halfway paying attention. It was an old argument, and the reason that he had readily paid for the record with his own money rather than ask for pocket change from his mum. Not that there was much pocket change to be had. He opened a cabinet, then closed it and walked back into the living room.

“We’re out of tea.” The box of teabags was currently hidden in the back of his dresser drawer, shoved behind the obscenely red pants Harry had given him for his birthday.

A half-hearted grunt was the response, his mother’s eyes not wavering from whatever late-night show was on the telly.

“I’m going out to get some more.” He was going to Annabel Howard’s house, where a bash was taking place.

There was another grunt, and John slipped back to his room. He jammed his feet into shoes, slipped his wallet into his back pocket, and shrugged on his jacket. As he moved back into the living room and towards the front door, he glanced at the clock. It wasn’t quite late enough for Harry to have gotten herself completely sloshed, and as he trotted down the metal stairs to get to the pavement he sent up a silent prayer that she’d be reasonable tonight. He had a big biology test the next morning and didn’t feel like dealing with the headache Harry was sure to bring with her.

John sighed, shoved his hands deeper into his jacket pockets and picked up the pace.

***

Before he even got to Annabel’s block he could hear the music. Loud rock n’ roll spilled down the street, and cars lined the pavement. There was a flock of motorbikes parked nearer to the house, and a couple greasers standing next to them, smoking their cigs and glaring as people walked by.

John ducked his head as he passed, feeling conspicuous in his conservative trousers instead of jeans and his carefully combed and parted hair that lacked any product. The closer he got to the house, the more out of place he felt. There was next to no one that didn’t have on Chucks or leather of some sort, and it seemed that everyone was holding a drink of some kind or a cigarette. By the time John made it into the house, he was shouldering his way past others in order to walk by.

The party that was going on inside of the house was incredible. The sheer amount of people was overwhelming. Blaring music drowned out almost all conversation and seemed to take up as much room as all of the bodies. Little Richard was singing his love to Miss Molly as John wedged through dancing throngs, scanning the crowd for his sister as he did. He almost got hit in the head by a flying high heeled shoe, thrown off of a foot by an over-enthusiastic kick from one of the school cheerleaders.

John sighed internally, reminded thoroughly of why he didn’t come to these things.

He eventually found Harry curled up in a corner, giggling with Annabel and holding a brown bottle that definitely wasn’t a Cola. If he hadn’t been her brother, John would have assumed that they were just drunk best friends. However, he was Harry’s brother, and could tell right away that this was the most recent in Harry’s string of secret-so-help-me-God-if-you-tell-anyone-I’ll-murder-you girlfriends.

John didn’t have a problem with it. You love who you love, he supposed, and didn’t bother to think beyond that. But this party had a large number of people, and he knew that the greater percentage of them would not think like he did if Harry was to be found out.

John bent his knees, squatting down so that he could talk to her. “Harry,” he said, nudging her gently. His sister rolled her head towards him.

“Lookie here,” she slurred. “It’s my perfect baby brother. What’re y’doin’ out on a school night?” Harry reached a hand forward, grasped him, and gasped dramatically. “Does Mum know you’re here?”

John frowned, taking her hand on his shoulder and using it to pull her up. “No,” he said tersely. “She thinks I’m out getting tea. Now say goodbye to Annabel, it’s time to go.”

Harry wobbled once she was on her feet, and it took a moment for her to gather her thoughts. She did, though, and made a pouty face at John, her blonde bangs falling over her eyes. “C’mon, Johnny. Don’t be a party pooper.”

"Yeah, Johnny," Annabel echoed faintly. "Don't be a party pooper."

John frowned. He hated the nickname Johnny. He opened his mouth to say as much when a cry went up in the room. The horrible noise of a needle being carelessly pulled cut Elvis’s warnings about stepping on his blue suede shoes short, and suddenly people were shouting.

“It’s the coppers!” “Run!”

Harry’s eyes got big, and suddenly she was gone, leaving John to fumble around, unsure of where to go or even what to do in this kind of situation. He got knocked backwards by the wave of people trying to run by, and was pushed along with the crowd. He was just starting to lose his footing, and becoming worried about being completely trampled, that there was suddenly a hand on his. John looked up, and met a pair of startlingly pale blue eyes.

“This way,” the greaser said, and John found himself pulled along, the crowd seeming to part for this mysterious boy as he towed John along.

The greaser expertly weaved through the people, until he made a sharp turn and they were in a slightly less populated hallway. He continued tugging John along, then shouldered his way through a door, and suddenly they were outside again. John could see the blue and red lights bouncing off of the houses on the streets, and fear raced through his system."Which way now?" he asked, turning to the greaser.

The taller boy gave him an odd smile. "If you wait for another minute, I can guarantee you won't get arrested," he said.

John glanced nervously at the flashing lights, then back at the greaser. "How?" he asked.

The greaser lifted an eyebrow, and then the door they had just come out of burst open and another boy a little bit older than they came tumbling out of the house. He spared one look at John and the greaser before sprinting off in the other direction, leaping over the fence and into the neighbor's back yard.

The greaser gave John a delighted grin. "Like this," he said, then gave chase and vaulted over the fence after the other boy.

John stared at the spot where the greaser disappeared. Then, he decided to leap over the fence after the other two, reasoning that it was surely better than the back of a police car.

***

It hadn't taken long for John to catch up to the greaser, and now they had made it out of Annabel's neighborhood and were chasing the other boy down an alley.

Ten meters away, John saw the boy trip over something and roll his ankle. He shoved aside his initial wince of sympathy and put forth a burst of speed, then rugby tackled him. They both went down hard, and there was a short scuffle before John had the older boy on his stomach and was sitting on his back, holding his wrists together.

The greaser then swooped down. John heard two sncks, and when he stepped back handcuffs were secured around the pinned boy's wrists.

John stood up and brushed off the knees of his trousers. He turned towards his partner and stuck out a hand. "John Watson," he said.

The greaser regarded him with his cool gaze for a moment, then took John's hand. "Sherlock Holmes," he said, and now that John wasn't running or afraid of being arrested, he registered that Sherlock Holmes's voice was almost sinfully deep, and his face was striking. Sherlock nodded towards the handcuffed boy. "There's a police box at the corner of this street. Help me lug this idiot over there, would you?"

John shook his head minutely, dragging his focus from sharp cheekbones and agreed, pulling the boy up off the ground. He was whimpering, but able to walk on his own. John kept one hand fisted tightly in the boy's jacket anyway, and followed after Sherlock as he led the way out of the alley.

“Where’d you get the handcuffs?” John asked.

“Nicked them,” Sherlock said simply. His tone didn’t encourage John to ask anymore questions, so they walked in silence.

True to his word, Sherlock led John to a police box just a few meters from the alley. The handcuffed boy went into the box with no resistance. Sherlock opened the telephone compartment and lifted the receiver. He waited for a few minutes, and then apparently got someone on the other line.

“Ah, Sergeant Donovan. It’s Sherlock Holmes. Listen, tell Lestrade I’ve got his jewelry thief in the box on the outside of Speedy’s, would you?” Sherlock then hung up, not waiting for a response from the sergeant on the other end.

John looked at the box, then back at Sherlock. “That guy’s a thief?”

Sherlock made an affirmative noise, leaning against the wall to the cafe they were standing outside of and pulling out a package of cigarettes. He put one in his mouth and lit it before digging into the pocket of his leather jacket and tossing something at John.

He caught it with a minimum of fumbling and looked closer at what it was. Then John reared back. Then looked closer again. He gasped. “This is--”

“Your mother’s necklace,” Sherlock finished. He blew smoke out of his mouth with practiced grace. “Owen in there nicked it off your sister at the bash. Couldn’t resist another prize, apparently.”

John looked up at Sherlock. “How on Earth d’you figure that?”

“Same way I know that your family’s tight on money, there’s a streak of alcoholism that runs in your family as well, and you want to go to a good uni and get out of the situation you’re in. I observe."

John’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. Hearing his family’s problems spoken about in such a nonchalant fashion was almost like a slap to the face. “Sorry, but how do you know all that?”

Sherlock sighed, then flicked ash off of his cig before raking his eyes over John. The immediate feeling John got was like being a bug pinned under a microscope. Sherlock took a large breath, then started rattling off facts. “I know you’re having financial problems by the state of your clothes. Very cube, and appear to be bought from a outlet store at first glance, but if you look closer, you can tell that your jacket is secondhand, likely found in a thrift shop. Your jumper appears store bought, but is actually handmade. A talented aunt or grandmother, most likely. Most giving is the fact that your pants have been hemmed, and multiple times at that. There’s a subtle give to the fabric where the original hem was, and if you look the right way, you can see that the current hem is crooked and the stitches vary in length the way that they have a tendency to when the person making the hem pulls the fabric too quickly through the machine.

“As for the alcoholism, I noticed your sister at the bash. She approached alcohol with a familiarity that the average high school student doesn’t have, and was one of the first ones to be drunk to a nearly inebriated level. Typically those behaviors towards drink points towards an alcoholic in the family, but I wasn’t entirely convinced until you arrived. The way you acted and treated her obviously indicated that you’d done this multiple times and that it was a recurring problem.

“Now there’s you. Obviously you’ve no interest in parties, the entire time you were at the bash you were incredibly uncomfortable and, frankly, out of place. You were at home instead, studying for a biology test tomorrow. You’ve graphite smeared all along the outside of your hand from where you’ve been taking notes. The only teacher at the local high school that plans on giving a test tomorrow is Mrs Rechard, and not even all her classes, but only her second-level biology and up. From there I can conclude that grades mean quite a lot to you, and you’re likely going to go into some kind of scientific field, likely medical.”

John stared at the greaser opposite him. “That...was incredible,” he finally said.

Sherlock looked up at him with alarm, though it only showed for a split second. It was replaced with a schooled mask of mild intrigue. “Really? You think so?”

“Yeah,” John said, a smile breaking over his face. “Truly brilliant.”

Sherlock leaned back against the wall, an amused smile quirking over his lips. “That’s not what people usually say,” he said, taking a long drag from his cigarette.

“What do they usually say?” John asked, curious.

Sherlock flicked ash off his cigarette once more, then dropped it and ground the stub under his shoe. When he was done, he looked John straight in the eye and deadpanned, “Piss off.”

John stared at him for a moment before breaking into giggles. One half of Sherlock’s mouth twitched up, as if he was going to smile for real for the first time that night. John discovered that he wanted to see this boy’s real smile. The grin was abandoned, though, when a police car pulled up next to them and a man climbed out. Sherlock’s focus was immediately on him, a frown creasing over his face. “Took you long enough,” he said crossly.

The man sighed. “Yeah, well, someone called in an out-of-control party a few neighborhoods over. I was in charge of overseeing.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Oh please, I called that in. It was the only way to get Owen running.”

John gaped at Sherlock, while the policeman just sighed. He walked over to the police box and opened the door, then pulled Owen the Thief. “You’re under arrest for the thieving of Maxwell’s Jewl-” The man cut himself short, staring at Owen’s cuffed wrists. “Sherlock,” he said, in a very controlled, even voice. “Why is this boy already cuffed?”

“It was the only way to ensure he didn’t try to run again,” Sherlock responded. “Dont worry, they're your cuffs. Anyway, I’ve caught your thief, and now he’s yours to deal with. Goodnight, Lestrade. John Watson.” And with that, the greaser swept away, leaving John with the irritated policeman.

“Is he always like that?” John asked the man.

The policeman gave an almighty sigh. “Usually, he’s worse. Now get on home.”


	2. Chapter 2

The first few days after John’s baffling night with the one Sherlock Holmes, there was little else he could think about. He found himself looking for the greaser in the hallways at school. How else could he have known about Mrs Rechard’s test? Unless he knew someone else at the school, John figured that Sherlock had to attend there, as well. 

John found himself to be right. He would catch glimpses of Sherlock in the hallways, always alone and looking intimidating in his leather jacket, towering over most other high schoolers that hadn’t hit their growth spurts yet. 

The more John looked at Sherlock, the more he was starting to admire the alienness of his looks. High, sharp-cut cheekbones demanded attention, and Cupid’s bow lips were almost always turned down into a frown. His hair was shorn short in the back and sides and a mop of carefully styled curls fell over his forehead, which would have disqualified him from being a greaser if he wasn't so obviously one. Most noticeably, though, were his eyes. Never quite the same shade as the last time John had seen them, alternating between blue and grey and green, but always focussed with an almost frightening intensity.

John’s thoughts eventually got torn away from Sherlock, though. His classes demanded his attention, and rugby season was in full swing, which meant John was staying after school for practices every day.

One day, about a month after the party, John went into the locker room to change for practice. The atmosphere in the locker room when John entered was tense, and John felt the back of his neck prickle. The other players were whispering to each other, and Cyril Overton, the coach, was pacing up and down one of the sides of the room.

John walked over to his locker, stowing his books away for the afternoon. He pulled out his rugby clothes and started putting them on. “What’s happened?” he asked Mike Stamford, the boy who had the locker next to him.

Mike adjusted his glasses, then whispered, “Godfrey’s gone missing.”

John’s head snapped towards him. “What do you mean, he’s gone missing?” he hissed. 

Mike looked worried. “He’s gone. Disappeared. Apparently his mum went to wake him up this morning, and he was gone. They’ve called all his mates, they can’t find him anywhere. They’ve already gotten the man involved. Some officer named Anderson is questioning Bill in Overton’s office right now.”

John bit his lip, looking blankly into his locker. Then, he remembered Sherlock Holmes. And how he had apparently been working with the police the night of the party. And suddenly, John had an idea. “I’ll be right back,” he told Mike, then scampered out of the locker room, hoping that Sherlock hadn’t left the school already.

He ran down the hallways, then banged his way out of one of the side doors to check the parking lot first. He was quick enough to see a familiar greaser getting onto a motorbike, late afternoon sun making his hair seem almost auburn. “Sherlock!” John shouted, lifting a hand a waving. “Hold on!” 

John jogged over to the motorbike. Sherlock had straddled the beast of a thing, and was lighting a cigarette. John frowned at him. “You know, those things really aren’t good for you,” he said.

Sherlock chuckled. “Definitely going into the medical field, then,” he said, before taking a long drag. “What can I possibly do for a square like yourself, John Watson?” he drawled, exhaling smoke towards the sky. 

A frown creased John’s forehead. “Godfrey Staunton’s gone missing,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “Should that name mean something to me?” The amount of incredulity in his voice made John’s hackles raise.

“Oh, you know. He’s only the best rugby player in the school,” John said.

“Ah,” Sherlock said. “A bull. No wonder I haven’t heard of him.” Sherlock took another drag on his cig, then tossed the thing away and reached for the ignition on his bike. “You’re gonna have to find him without my help, cube," he said, turning the key and making the bike roar.

“Oi!” John shouted. In a moment of pure insanity, he leapt in front of Sherlock’s motorbike and grabbed the handlebars, putting his face directly in Sherlock’s. “Look, this kid’s actually brilliant on the field. He’s already got a bunch unis looking at him, and there’s talk that he’s gonna get called right up to the professional league. The only way we’re gonna win our match on Friday is if someone finds him. Plus, his parents are in a tizzy. They’ve already got the police looking into it, there’s some guy named Anderson already questioning the rest of the team--”

“Oh, good God!” Sherlock exclaimed, leaning back. “They let _Anderson_ do the questionings?”

John leaned back, mollified. “Well, yeah. He’s the one in Coach Overton’s office, at least.”

Sherlock made a disgusted noise and cut the ignition on his bike. “You’re never going to find him if _Anderson’s_ the one questioning people,” he said, flinging a long leg over the bike and straightening up. “Let’s go find your _brilliant_ rugby player, then.”

John felt a relieved grin break over his face as he fell into step alongside Sherlock. “Thanks,” he said as they pushed through the doors and back into the school. 

Sherlock’s eyes cut down to John’s feet. “Well, it must have meant a great deal to you if you ran out to find me without shoes.”

Confused, John glanced at his feet, and discovered that he was, indeed, walking around with just his socks on. A rush of embarrassment rolled over him. “Well,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I wanted to make sure I caught you before you left.”

Sherlock simply gave him an amused smirk.

***

Back in the locker room, not much had changed. The boys on the team were still sitting on the benches in front of the lockers, and Coach Overton was still pacing. John made a beeline for his locker, grabbing his cleats before padding after Sherlock, who was walking straight for the coach’s office.

“Uh, Sherlock,” John warned.

“Son, you’re not allowed in there,” Coach Overton said.

Sherlock sent a glare at him, then shouldered his way into the office anyway. Coach Overton’s eyes just about bugged out of his head, and John followed Sherlock in, apologizing to the coach as he did.

In the office, the police officer did not look happy. “What’s going on here?” he asked, an angry frown creasing his face.

“I am so sorry, Officer Anderson,” Coach Overton said. He had followed John into the office. “That boy just barged in here, I tried to stop him--”

“Oh, shut up,” Sherlock said, crossly. Everyone in the room gaped at him, and Sherlock seemed unfazed by his show of lack of respect. He simply moved to the desk behind which Officer Anderson was sitting, looking down at the notes he was taking. Sherlock snorted. “You’re wasting your time here,” he said.

“Excuse me?” Anderson spluttered. “This is an official missing persons case, not one of the little bones Lestrade throws to you.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Eighty percent of the information you’ve written down is irrelevant.”

The police officer’s face turned an interesting shade of purple. “And why do you say that?” he bit out.

“They need this player to win their match on Friday. They value the sport far too much, no one would have risked the loss by kidnapping their best player.”

Anderson spluttered for a moment. “And if the boy’s the best player, one of his teammates are likely to have been jealous. Perhaps they hid him in a basement and thought they could lead the team to victory instead.”

At that, Sherlock actually scoffed. “Please. If you even glanced around the room you could tell that none of these players would do it. Half of them think themselves Godfrey’s best friend and would never dare harm him. Another quarter are in grade nine and far too scared of someone in grade twelve to even think about trying to kidnap them. The last quarter couldn’t overtake him if they tried. Godfrey plays the three quarter position, so he has to either be extremely fast and elusive, or big and strong enough to break tackles, essentially the perfect definition of a bull. If you’ve seen a picture of Godfrey, which you obviously haven’t, you would have been able to tell immediately that he was of the latter category. Now,” Sherlock said, spinning around. “I need to talk to his parents. Come along, John.”

Sherlock strode out of the office, leaving John to apologize before hurrying after him. In the short time it had taken John to exit the office, Sherlock had already made it out of the locker room, and John had to jog to keep up.

“You could have been a little more respectful,” he chided. “He’s a _policeman_.”

Sherlock snorted. “Anderson barely has the brain of a functioning human, let’s not actually give him a title.”

John frowned, but continued following Sherlock, who led him back out to the parking lot and made a beeline for his motorbike.

A few meters away, John stopped walking. Sherlock didn’t notice. “I need you to tell me how to get to Godfrey’s house. Quickly, before Anderson calls Lestrade and tells him to send one of his idiot minions to the Staunton home.” Sherlock straddled the bike, then reached down for the ignition and started it. He looked over his shoulder. “Hurry up. Didn’t I just tell you this needs to be quick?”

John gaped at him. “You want me to get on that thing?”

“Oh, for the love of--” Sherlock hopped up, crossed the three meters John had left between him and the bike in three strides, then grabbed John’s arm and yanked him over, leaving John no choice but to gingerly get a leg up over the seat. Sherlock flung a leg over with practiced ease, then glanced over his shoulder to make sure John wasn’t only halfway in the seat. Then he kicked the bike into gear, and turned his head back only the slightest bit.

“You may want to hold on,” he said, mouth turned up in a smirk.

John felt his eyes widen. “Wha--” And then the bike jerked forward, roaring out of the school parking lot. John let loose a string of expletives and threw his arms around Sherlock’s waist to keep from falling off. “Slow down!” John yelled over the screaming wind. 

“What’s the fun in that?” Sherlock shouted back, a grin playing across his lips. Then he gunned the engine, making the bike jump forward. John cursed again, then tightened his grip on Sherlock and prayed that he wouldn’t get thrown off.

***

Fifteen minutes later, John was standing on the doorstep of the Staunton’s house, finger-combing his hair to try and get it back to a semi-acceptable state of being.

Sherlock had already rung the doorbell and was rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. A few seconds passed, and then they could hear the click of high heels on hardwood. Mrs Staunton opened the front door. She was wearing a pretty floral dress, but her face spoke of obvious distraught. Sherlock’s face immediately snapped into a winning smile. “Hello, Mrs Staunton,” he said brightly.

The poor woman’s brow furrowed. She glanced from Sherlock to John, and seemed to recognize him. “Oh. Hello, John. And, um.” She looked back at Sherlock.

“Sherlock Holmes,” Sherlock supplied helpfully. John struggled to keep his surprise off his face. He hadn’t interacted with Sherlock but for a few times, but already had the sense that Sherlock was never this helpful of his own volition. “We were wondering if Godfrey wanted to come out and play a game of rugger. Some of the other boys are down at Regent’s already.” There was a moment’s pause, and then a sharp pressure on John’s foot.

John gasped, then quickly turned it into a cough. “Right. Yeah. Does he want to come down with us?”

“Oh,” Mrs Staunton said. “Oh, dear. You boys don’t--oh, my. Right. Come in.” She opened the front door wider to let them in, then turned and hurried towards the kitchen. Sherlock stepped in after her without hesitation, and John hastened to follow. As they walked through the front entryway, John gave Sherlock a sharp elbow to the ribs. When the greaser snapped his head towards him to glare, John made a gesture that very obviously said _What?!_

Sherlock rolled his eyes, then continued forward without a backwards glance towards him. John gritted his teeth and followed, wondering exactly what he had gotten himself into by enlisting Sherlock’s help.

“You boys can sit in the living room,” Mrs Staunton said, waving her hand in towards it. “I’ve already got a kettle on, if you could just hold on for a moment.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary, Mrs Staunton,” Sherlock said, his voice once again bright. “We’ll just pop up to Godfrey’s room and ask if he wants to join us.” 

“Oh.” Mrs Staunton clicked her way into the living room to join John and Sherlock. She was wringing her hands. “You see.” She paused, and then coughed into her hands. “Godfrey’s gone missing,” she managed, her voice choked. “The police think--they think he’s been kidnapped.”

Sherlock, who had been standing next to John, froze, then slowly sunk down into the couch they were standing in front of. “That can’t be right,” he said, and his voice sounded broken. John followed his example, doing his best to mimic Sherlock’s shell-shocked expression. 

“I know,” Mrs Staunton said, and sounded dangerously close to tears. “It’s been a difficult day.” And then she really did start crying. John took pity on her and stood up, guiding her gently to a chair.

“I think I need to use the loo for a moment,” Sherlock said, still sounding utterly wrecked. John heard him clamber up and disappear further into the house, while he stayed in the living room and tried to comfort Mrs Staunton. Sherlock reappeared a while later, and after listening to Mrs Staunton question all of her choices in home security and neighborhood for fifteen minutes, John was more than ready to go.

“I’m sure the police are going to find him,” he said reassuringly. Mrs Staunton nodded, wiped her eyes, and then showed he and Sherlock out.

Once they were outside, John rounded on Sherlock. “What was that?” he asked angrily.

“Oh, don’t sound so enraged, you did fine,” Sherlock said, reaching underneath the back of his jacket and pulling a notebook that had Godfrey's named printed across the front of it from the waistband of his jeans. “Do you have a pencil?” he asked, flipping the notebook open.

“No, it’s with my stuff in my locker. Besides, where did you get--” John cut himself off. “Oh God, my locker. What time is it?” he asked frantically.

Sherlock was digging in the pockets of his jacket, not paying John a lick of attention. “Ah. Here’s one,” Sherlock announced, brandishing a pencil for John to see.

“Seriously, Sherlock, what time is it? My stuff is going to get locked in the school,” John said.

With a dismissive wave of a long hand, he was ignored in favor of carefully running the pencil over the page of the notebook, smearing graphite on it from top to bottom. 

“Sherlock!” John snapped.

Frowning, Sherlock looked up from his graphite smearing. With a sigh, he lifted his face towards the sky. “I’d say it’s half five,” he said, attention immediately returning to the notebook. 

John made a distressed noise. “My stuff is going to get locked in overnight if we don’t go get it right now!” he said, tugging on the sleeve of Sherlock’s jacket.

The greaser flapped an arm at him, then shoved the notebook under his nose. “Look at what this says!” Sherlock said. And he sounded excited. John looked over the edge of the notebook and studied Sherlock a bit more closely. His eyes were lit up, and while he wasn’t smiling, his perpetual frown was no more.

John sighed, then took the notebook from Sherlock and studied it. “‘Stand by us for God’s sake,’” he read aloud. He looked up at Sherlock. “What does that mean?”

Sherlock’s hands were folded and pressed to his lips. “Haven’t the faintest,” he said after a moment. “Right now the most important questions are who was it for and how did it get there. It's obviously a response to another note, you can see other impressions from previous writings on the page, though you can't make out what they say. The heavy impressions point towards anxiety, along with hurried writing, as do the leftover pieces of paper in the binding. The paper in composition notebooks doesn't rip like that unless you pull it out extremely quickly. I ran an experiment over it once."

"So Godfrey was worried and in a hurry when he wrote the note," John said. "Why would he write it?"

"Well obviously he's trying to get in touch with someone more quickly than the post, but doesn't want to use the telephone."

John pursed his lips as he thought. "Perhaps he doesn't want to risk the chance of his parents picking up another line and hearing his conversation?" he offered. 

Sherlock frowned. "A reasonable assumption, but "stand by us for God's sake" doesn't exactly fit with a swanky love letter to your girl," he said. "This is more of a plea for help than anything. But how would you get a note to a person more quickly than the post?"

"Oh, that's easy," John said. "Give a milkman a couple shillings, and if the house is on their route, they'll deliver a note or two. I've done it when Mum forgot to pay the phone bill."

Sherlock stared at him. 

"What?" John asked.

"John Watson," Sherlock said. "You aren't nearly as much of a square as I thought."

John froze, taken aback by what he thought might have been a compliment. "Um. Thanks?"

Sherlock clapped him on the back. "Let's go ask Mrs Staunton who their milkman is," he said. Sherlock was practically vibrating with excitement as he took a step back towards the Staunton residence. 

"Oh, no sir," John said, hooking a hand around Sherlock's elbow, keeping him from approaching the house. Sherlock's momentum caused him to swing back around, putting he and John face to face. "That poor woman's been through enough today. We're taking this straight to the Scotland Yard."

Sherlock dropped his head back as he groaned. "But they'll take forever," he whined. 

John kept his hand on Sherlock's arm, simply raising an eyebrow when the greaser looked towards him. 

"Fine," Sherlock said, heaving an almighty sigh, and moving back towards his motorbike. John reluctantly followed, still hesitant of the thing. 

"Do you think you could try to go the speed limits this time?" John asked, carefully climbing onto the bike and settling behind Sherlock. 

"Oh, please," Sherlock said, the engine roaring to life as he twisted the key in the ignition. "That's boring."

***

“Alright. I assume this is the first time you’ve been to the Met, and even if it isn’t, it’s the first time you’ve gone in on business. Don’t talk, they’ll know you’ve never been, and look like you know what you’re doing, if you can,” Sherlock said as they strolled into the building.

“Not sure if that’s possible while I’m still in my rugby threads,” John muttered, continuing his past five-minute lament of his things getting locked in the school.

“If I have to tell you one more time not to worry about them, I’m going to cut your tongue out,” Sherlock said, without glancing back towards John.

The threat was given in a very casual manner, and John wasn’t sure if he should take it seriously or not. At any rate, it made him stop complaining. He followed Sherlock through the building, trying not to feel ridiculous about walking with a purpose while he was wearing his rugby shorts. His. Rather short. Rugby shorts.

No one stopped them as they walked to the lift, nor did anyone stop them from stepping into it. Sherlock pressed the button for the third floor, and it wasn’t until they stepped off the lift that anyone said anything about their being there.

When the lift dinged and the doors slid apart, announcing their arrival, a woman looked up and saw them walk into the office space. “Oh, for God’s sake,” she muttered. “What are you doing here?”

“Relax, Sergeant Donovan,” Sherlock said, walking through the desks with a familiarity that a typical seventeen year old should not have in a police station. “I come bearing evidence for the Godfrey Staunton case.”

Sergeant Donovan straightened from where she’d been leaning over, a frown creasing her brow. John trailed over to the table she was standing at, and the officer appeared to notice him for the first time. “Who’s this?” she asked holding out an arm and keeping John from getting too close to the table. 

“He’s my assistant, let him look,” Sherlock said absently, studying other pieces of evidence strewn across the table.

“Assistant!” John spluttered, at the same time that Sergeant Donovan flatly said, “He’s wearing rugby clothes.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and didn’t respond, and the sergeant sighed. “How did you even find out about the case?” she asked, folding her arms.

“I do attend school, Sergeant. And it just so happens that Godfrey Staunton does as well. Ironic how two boys that live in the same city and are approximately the same age attend the same school,” Sherlock said. He looked up from the table full of evidence and started walking further into the building. “Where’s Lestrade?” Sherlock asked. “I need to ask him about a milkman.”

“He’s not here,” Donovan said. “Anderson called, needed him to go see something."

Sherlock lifted his head and studied Donovan for a moment. "Off again, then?" he quipped, a corner of his mouth turned up in a smirk. 

Donovan's face twisted into a sour expression, and for a moment John was concerned that she was going to slap Sherlock. She didn't, though, instead screwing her eyes closed and taking a deep breath. "So where's this evidence?" she asked through clenched teeth.

Sherlock pulled the notebook out of his jeans waistband, and flipped to the page with the impressions. "Stand by us for God's sake," he declared. 

Donovan picked up the notebook, studying the impressions more closely. "Where on Earth did you get this?" she asked. 

"Well, Godfrey and I have the same math teacher," Sherlock started to say. As he was talking, though, the lift dinged again, and a grey haired man stepped into the room. 

"I'll tell you where he got it," the man, whom John recognized as the officer Sherlock had called Lestrade on the night of the party, said. "He was at the Staunton home not an hour ago, and apparently dug around in Godfrey's room," Lestrade continued, striding over to the evidence table. 

Sherlock frowned. "It's more helpful evidence than any of you lot have found," he snipped, crossing his arms haughtily. 

Lestrade frowned. "Sherlock," he said. "You. _Cannot_. Break into crime scenes." John could immediately tell that this was an age-old conversation, and felt no desire to become involved in it. 

"I didn't break in," Sherlock sneered. "I was _invited_. John and I were asking if Godfrey wanted to come out and join a match of rugby, and his mother assumed that we didn't know her son was missing. _Voila_ , immediate, _legal_ access."

Lestrade gave a weary sigh, and John was reminded of a father dealing with an ankle biter. Lestrade closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "What did you find?" he asked after a moment's silence. 

Sherlock lit up like a Christmas tree, then explained the note. "We need to find their milkman," he said at the end. 

Lestrade looked at Donovan, then nodded his head towards the phones. Donovan sighed, but went, and they could hear the quiet murmur as she called someone. Lestrade sighed again, and then pointed at Sherlock. “We will do this, because it’s more of a lead than anything else. But you have got to stop manipulating your way onto cases.”

Sherlock frowned. “But the rest of the world is boring,” he whined, sounding remarkably like a six year old. John elbowed him in the ribs, which earned him a thunderous glare.

“Well boring or not, you’re going to get me in trouble if you keep doing this,” Lestrade said, picking up papers that were scattered over the table.

Sherlock groaned but didn’t say anything. John wasn’t sure if that meant he was going to stop sneaking into crime scenes or not abide Lestrade at all.

Donovan walked back over, her heels clicking on the tile floor. “The company that delivers the Staunton’s milk is already closed for the night. We won’t be able to get a list of their employees until the morning.”

Lestrade frowned. “Did you tell them it’s a missing persons investigation?” he asked.

Scowling, Donovan nodded. “Doesn’t change the fact that they’re closed,” she said.

“Oh please,” Sherlock said. “Just get a warrant.”

Donovan turned her scowl on Sherlock. “A judge isn’t going to grant a warrant to go through all the company’s employee records based on a shaded-over piece of paper and no proof that a milkman has anything to do with it,” she said sharply. Sherlock returned her scowl with one of his own, and started to turn to Lestrade to say something.

“She’s right, Sherlock,” Lestrade said immediately, holding up a hand to stop whatever scathing remark was coming. “You’re just going to have to go home and wait. We’ll call you with whatever information we get.”

Sherlock’s thunderous frown didn’t falter. “If I’m not here to question him, you’re not going to get everything,” he said.

“We’re trained professionals, Sherlock,” Lestrade said, his voice soothing. John spared a glance towards Sherlock and knew immediately that the tone was doing no good. “I’m sure we can figure out if a milkman is delivering notes. You’re seventeen. It’s getting late. Go home.”

Sherlock’s lips pinched together, but he didn’t protest. “Fine,” he spat. “Come along, John.” He spun on his heel and stalked away, and John sent awkward smiles to both police officers and quickly followed Sherlock out of the room, managing to slip into the lift just as the doors were closing.

“Are you really going to do that in here?” John complained as Sherlock stuck a cigarette in his mouth and lifted his lighter. Sherlock sent him a sharp glare and went ahead and lit the thing anyway. John rolled his eyes and stood in silence as the lift brought them back down to the first floor.

The lift dinged, and then they walked out into the reception of the Met. “At least they’re looking into it,” John offered as Sherlock stalked out of the building and straight for his motorbike. 

"Where do you live?" Sherlock asked, mounting the bike and starting it. 

John worried his lip for a moment, then sighed. It was far past the time that the school was locked up for the night. His stuff would just have to wait. "West side," he said, climbing onto the bike behind Sherlock and wrapping his arms around the greaser's waist. "Victoria Street."

***

John had been slightly concerned about his mum yelling at him for leaving all his things at school, but when Sherlock dropped him off and he walked inside the flat, he found his mother sound asleep on the couch, with Jimmy Wheeler playing on the telly and a half-empty bottle of wine sitting uncorked on the kitchen counter.

Turns out, what he should have been worried about was Harry. 

" _Johnny_ ," she said, watching out the window as Sherlock drove away. _"Who_ was _that?"_

"Shhhhh," John hissed, eyeing his mother. "No one," he shot at Harry, before crossing the living room gingerly and escaping into the hallway that led to his room. Harry followed him. 

"Why were your hands around his waist? Oh my god, _Johnny_ ," she said. "Your _hands_ were around his _waist!"_ she squealed. 

"Shut up," John whispered. He glanced towards the living room over his shoulder. "You're going to wake Mum."

Harry rolled her eyes, then pushed him into his own room and shut the door. "Your _hands_ were around his _waist_ ," she repeated, looking at him seriously. 

"It's a motorbike," John said. "Where else am I supposed to put them?"

"Why were you on his motorbike?" Harry immediately asked. 

"He gave me a ride home."

"Why?"

"None of your beeswax," John snapped. Too quickly. 

Harry's jaw dropped. "Oh, my god. Johnny, are you fucking a greaser?"

Heat immediately rushed to John's face. 

"Because I totally wouldn't blame you for jumping that piece of arse," Harry continued. 

"No!" John hissed, regaining use of his voice. "No, no, no, _no!_ " 

Harry raised an eyebrow at him. "You're in your rugby clothes, which means you ditched before practice was done. You rode home on his motorbike, with your _hands_ around his fucking _waist_. The boy doth protest too much, methinks," she sing-songed at him. 

John felt his blush intensify. Of all the times Harry would choose to be perceptive. "I am _not_ banging him," he said adamantly. 

"You should be," Harry retorted instantly. “I mean. You rode around on his motorbike. In your _rugby shorts_.”

John's face immediately burned red. "Out," he said, pointing at his door. 

Harry smiled. "I can't believe my baby brother is fucking a big bad greaser," she said sweetly. 

John’s jaw clenched tight, his teeth grinding together as he grabbed Harry by the shoulder and yanked her to the door. "I am not sleeping with anyone, and you are only older than me by seventeen minutes. Go. Away."

"When do I get to meet him?" she asked. 

John shut his door in her face. There was silence for a few moments, a giggle, and then footsteps as Harry retreated to her room. John let out a relieved breath, then collapsed onto his bed. He rubbed his hands across his face. He was exhausted. Riding the motorbike and running over London with Sherlock and trying to keep up with Sherlock mentally had him completely knackered. He could feel himself drifting off, and managed to toe his cleats off before falling dead asleep.

***

When John woke up a few hours later, he wasn’t quite sure why he did. He blinked blearily, eyes adjusting to the darkness in his room, moonlight-lit objects becoming familiar shapes once more. He sat up and ran a hand through his hair. Then, suddenly, what sounded like the fire escape being yanked down jolted him into full awareness.

John could hear metal creaking as someone ascended the ladder outside his window. Wildly he scrambled for the closest object that could function as a weapon, then pressed himself against the wall next to the window so that he could bash the intruder from behind.

A shadow melted into existence in the block of moonlight on his floor. John’s heartbeat was roaring in his ears. He could feel every muscle in his body tight with tension as the lock on his window was jimmied and the glass pushed upwards. John’s grip on his weapon tightened, and someone swung into his bedroom. He pulled his arms back, and then--

“Sherlock?” John choked.

The greaser turned around. “John,” he said, sounding surprised. Then his eyes narrowed. “You were _not_ about to attack me with a cricket bat.”

John’s arms fell to his sides as he slid down the wall. “Fuck,” he breathed. Adrenaline was coursing through his body. “Fuck,” he repeated, his eyes sliding closed as he ran a hand over his face.

Sherlock frowned down at him.

John opened his eyes, then frowned right back. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “You just broke into my bedroom. At,” he glanced at the clock on his nightstand. “--two thirty in the morning.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes, then flung something that hit John in the stomach. John gasped as he automatically doubled over. “Do you not own any other clothes besides those and your rugby uniform? I see little other reason for sleeping in it,” Sherlock said, ignoring John’s reaction.

The comment was ignored in favor of investigating what had been hurled at John’s stomach. He discovered the clothes he had been wearing earlier that day, along with his bag that had his homework in it. John looked up at Sherlock, gaping.

“I took the liberty of doing your homework. I was expecting you to remain asleep,” Sherlock said, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Your handwriting is rather easy to replicate, by the way.”

John continued gaping at him.

Sherlock frowned. “Oh, shut your mouth. You look like even more of an idiot than you are.”

“Did you break into the school?” John asked.

“It was pathetically easy. Not nearly as much of a challenge as I was hoping for.”

A beat. “To get my stuff?”

Another beat. “Your incessant complaining was annoying.” If there had been better light, John would have noticed a slight blush on Sherlock’s cheeks.

There was an awkward moment where they were stuck simply looking at each other, and John was suddenly away that he was, indeed, still in his rugby uniform, without a doubt had horrible bedhead, and he could only pray that he didn’t have dried drool in the corner of his mouth. He suddenly really, _really_ didn’t want to be seen by Sherlock in this state. “Well. Thank you. For. Uh. Breaking into the school for me,” he finished lamely, finally standing up.

Sherlock pressed his lips together and shrugged. “Not a big deal. I’ll try to avoid breaking into your room again.” He strode towards the window and had one hand resting on it when John managed to get his mouth to work again.

“No!” he blurted out. Sherlock turned back towards him and looked at him strangely. “I mean. I didn’t. Um.” John cleared his throat. “I don’t mind the whole breaking-in thing. Um. Just. Not at two AM. Next time?” John could feel his face burning, and he wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole.

Sherlock studied him for a moment. Then, the corner of his mouth quirked up. “No promises, John Watson.” Then he put both hands on the raised sill, and, with a wink, swung back out onto the fire escape.

As soon as he was gone, John collapsed against the wall again. His heart was pounding, although he wasn’t quite ready to examine why. Instead, he allowed himself to count to ten, and then stood back up. He dumped his clothes in the laundry bin and his bag on his desk. 

He crept out of his room and into the bathroom, trying not to wake Harry or Mum. Upon looking in the mirror, he discovered that there was a little bit of dried drool on his face, much to his dismay. John sighed, brushed his teeth, and then tiptoed back into his room.

As he was changing into pyjamas, John remembered that Sherlock had said he’d done his homework. Curious, he opened his bag and shook out his math worksheet. “Damn,” he murmured, flipping it over and seeing that the backside was done as well. Sherlock’s imitation of his handwriting was eerily accurate. A yawn forced its way out of his mouth as he flicked through the rest of his homework, finding it in an identical completed state. He thought that perhaps he owed Sherlock something for doing it. 

But as he climbed into bed, John remembered that he had sat with the sobbing Mrs Staunton for a quarter of an hour. He felt his eyes drifting closed as he decided that Sherlock owed him at least two nights’ worth of homework for that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry about the delay. Real life is getting the best of me.

If John had been paying much attention to his actions, he might have had a feeling of deja vu as he looked eagerly for Sherlock the next day at school. He also looked on Wednesday. And Thursday. But Sherlock didn’t make an appearance in the hallways on any of the three days that followed their running around the city.

John tried to keep himself from being disappointed, but wasn’t successful. When he realized that he was disappointed, he told himself he shouldn’t be. He’d only spent an afternoon with the greaser. Well, an afternoon and that hour or so on the night of the party. That was hardly enough time to be disappointed about not seeing someone at school.

Telling himself this did nothing to relieve John’s disappointment.

He imagined that Sherlock was running all over London with the police, having adventures that surely were everyday to him, solving Godfrey Staunton’s disappearance. But Godfrey hadn’t returned to school yet, so John wasn’t entirely sure of what to think. But just because he wasn’t sure of what to think didn’t keep him from thinking.

He was staring down at his biology textbook on Thursday night without seeing it, picturing Sherlock riding his motorbike and making sharp turns around corners that made the bike go nearly horizontal instead of the Punnett squares for Mendel’s peas. A sudden screech jerked him away from both subjects, though.

“JOHN!”

John looked up, sighing before even fully lifting his head.

“JOHN!” his mother shouted again. “GET OUT HERE!”

John groaned as he moved his textbook off his lap and unfolded his legs, climbing off his bed. He could feel his mouth turned down in a sour line as he walked out of his room, and he managed to school his expression into something more neutral before he walked out of the hallway.

“Yes, Mum?” he asked, stepping into the living room.

Mrs Watson was reclined into the easy chair, still in her salon clothes. She was swirling wine in its glass with her left hand while she looked at the television guide that was held up by her right. “The telly’s not working. Fix it,” she ordered, without looking up from the guide.

John suppressed a sigh as he moved behind the telly, crouching down and peering at the fuzzy black and white static that was being displayed. He started by unplugging the thing and plugging it back in, and when that didn’t work, he started fiddling with the antennas on top. The picture started coming into clarity, fading in and out as he moved the antenna this way and that.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.

John heard the telly guide smack against his mother’s leg as she said, “Who the hell is calling this late at night?” John started to stand up to get the door, but Mrs Watson pointed at him. “No. Fix the telly. HARRIET!”

John hid a sigh as he crouched back down and Harry flounced out of the hallway. He heard the order for his sister to answer the door and the suggestion for what their caller could do at this late hour, and breathed a heavy exhale as he twisted one of the antenna and suddenly fixed the picture into near-perfect quality. He looked down in pleased shock. It was the quickest he’d ever managed to get the picture back.

And not a moment too soon, apparently. “Johnn-y,” Harry called from the door. “It’s your greaser!”

John froze, still crouched in front of the television. Then he leapt up the same moment that his mother said, “ _What?”_

“Nothing!” he said hurriedly, scrambling across the living room and to the front door. Just as Harry said, Sherlock was standing there, hands deep in his pockets and looking thoroughly unhappy. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying. It’s just. Um. Shane.” Sherlock gave him a scandalized look, and John glared right back as he put his hands on Harry’s shoulders and dragged her away from the door. “From rugby,” John added as he turned Harry around and walked her towards the hallway.

“Right,” he heard Sherlock say from the door. “From _rugby.”_

John could have killed him for the amount of sarcasm Sherlock put on the word. He could have killed Harry for the smile she was throwing at him over her shoulder. He settled for shoving her towards her room and then hurrying back to the front door. “I’ll just be a moment, Mum. It’s about the English assignment, right, Shane?” he said, purely for his mother’s sake.

Sherlock continued frowning. “Right,” he deadpanned. “It’s about the English assignment.” John wanted to throttle him. He’d seen Sherlock act. He damn well knew that he was being obtuse on purpose.

He waited long enough to hear his mother’s assenting grunt and see her flop back into the recliner before he shoved Sherlock away from the entrance to his flat and back into the hallway. “On the roof. Now,” he said, pointing to the window at the end of the hallway that led to the fire escape. Sherlock looked affronted at being ordered, and opened his mouth to say something. “Go, Sherlock Holmes,” John ordered, cutting whatever the comment was off.

Sherlock’s mouth hung open for just a moment too long before he snapped his jaw together with an audible click. He spun on his heels and walked towards the window. John exhaled heavily, then followed after him.

They climbed the fire escape in silence. It was windy out, and the gusts cut through John’s jumper like most November winds would. He shivered as he shimmied up onto roof after Sherlock, regretting not grabbing his jacket before leaving the flat. “Alright,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Where have you been?”

Sherlock didn’t answer right away, instead kicking at a rock.

“Sherlock,” John said. There wasn’t a response. John let the silence stretch on for about a minute before he exhaled angrily. “Fine then.” Then he turned on his heel and headed back towards the fire escape.

“Where are you going?” Sherlock said immediately, following him.

“Back inside,” John said, carefully lowering himself onto the ladder on the side of the building. “I’m cold.”

Sherlock scowled down at him. John looked back up and saw the scowl. He returned it with one of his own. Then he climbed down enough so that if he were to fold his arms over his chest, they’d rest on the roof ledge, and paused. “You don’t get to disappear for three days, then show up at my flat randomly and expect me to stand around while you sulk,” he informed the greaser. Sherlock scowled deeper, and John simply raised an eyebrow in response. 

Sherlock groaned. "Sorry," he spat out. 

John sighed, then started climbing back up. "You're not sorry at all," he said as he put a leg over the ledge and hauled himself back over. He straightened up and notice that Sherlock was standing on the very edge of the building. He gasped, and without thinking, grabbed Sherlock around the waist and yanked him off the ledge and back. "Are you _crazy?"_ he hissed. 

Sherlock twisted his head around so that he could look at John in the eyes. "Correct, to the first statement, and possibly, to the second," Sherlock said quietly, and John was suddenly acutely aware of how very close their faces were, and that Sherlock was pleasantly warm, and that it wouldn't take too much to see if his lips were as warm as his waist. 

It was that thought that caused John to step back, clear his throat, and cross his arms over his chest. Sherlock regarded him with a neutral expression, and John shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. If he hadn't known better, he might have said that Sherlock could read his mind. "So. What are you doing here?" John asked after a minute of being scanned by that sharp blue gaze. 

The question was enough to pull Sherlock out of his thoughts. John could see him mentally shifting gears, and then a scowl broke over his face. "They can't find the bloody milkman," Sherlock said sourly. 

John's brow furrowed. "The milkman that's been delivering the notes?"

"Yes, John, keep up," Sherlock snapped. He started pacing as he spoke, hands pressed together and fingertips resting beneath his chin. "The police have found the name of him, but no one's been able to find the man himself. _And_ Lestrade is being an idiot and not allowing me near the case because of our little foray into the Staunton home."

John rubbed a finger over his his bottom lip, waiting for further explanation. But Sherlock simply kept pacing, the gravelly surface of the roof crunching under his feet. "So, why haven't you been at school?" he asked, when it became obvious that no more information was forthcoming. 

"No!" Sherlock shouted. His hands moved from beneath his chin and ruffled his hair. He turned away from John again. "I can't _stand_ being surrounded by idiots on a normal day, let alone when a case is on. But I can't _work_ on the case because bloody Lestrade is being a ‘responsible officer’!" Sherlock turned back around as he said it, using fingers to make exaggerated air quotes.

"They said they'd call you when they found the milkman, right?" John asked. Sherlock's pacing and overly-fidgety behavior had him slightly on edge. 

Sherlock waved a hand in what John assumed was agreement.

“Then they’ll call you when they find him,” John said. “And until then, you can’t do anything about it.”

The huff he got in reply wasn’t pleased, but Sherlock’s fidgeting slowed down. “They’re going to take forever,” Sherlock whined.

John sighed. “Then I guess we’re going to lose our game tomorrow, unless Godfrey shows back up of his own volition.” He sat down on the roof, drawing his knees up and resting his elbows on them. “They haven’t gotten any more leads, have they?” he asked after a minute.

Sherlock plopped down beside him, pulling a cigarette and lighter out of his pocket. “Nope,” he said, then put the little white stick in his mouth and lit it.

“Mmm.” Absently John rubbed his arms as another gust of wind blew through. They sat in silence while Sherlock smoked. John watched the grey wisps form and dissipate in the air, and found himself yawning. He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. “What time is it?” he asked.

Sherlock flicked out a wrist, causing his jacket sleeve to ride up and reveal a watch. “Ten oh six,” he said. He took one more drag off his cigarette, then dug the butt into the roof.

“Alright,” John said, standing up. “I’m going to go back inside, and going to bed.” He held out a hand to Sherlock, who took it and helped haul himself up. 

“I suppose I should get back to the house before Mummy notices I’ve snuck out again,” Sherlock sighed. He ran his hands through his curly fringe again, then looked down at John. “I must say that you are unusual, John Watson. I don’t remember the last time stupid placating words like your own actually had an effect on my mind.”

John froze, once more thrown off by the second half compliment, half insult Sherlock had given him. “Well. Uh. You’re welcome?” he said after a moment.

One brow raised slightly, and pale eyes flicked up and down his body once more. Sherlock hummed, seeming to slip into his mind for a moment.

The moment turned into a minute. “Err, Sherlock?” John said, nudging him slightly.

Sherlock blinked once. Twice. And then looked down at John again, and nodded. “Goodnight, then,” he said abruptly, and then was disappearing down the fire escape.

John sighed, then walked across the roof and started his own descent. “A dramatic exit doesn’t work as well when I have to go the same way,” he called down. 

He heard Sherlock’s answering chuckle from a few ladders below, and smiled as he made his way down cold metal and back towards his flat.

***

Godfrey Staunton did not make a reappearance of his own volition. This fact sat heavy with the rugby team as they pulled on uniforms on Friday evening.

“Coach looks a mess,” Mike muttered to John as they exchanged loafers for thick socks and cleats.

John glanced up at Overton, taking in the haggard face and the cup of coffee clutched in his hands. “Can’t blame him,” John said, looking down as he tied his cleats. “He thinks of Godfrey practically as a son, you know?”

Mike hummed in agreement, bending over to tie his own cleats. There was quiet murmuring and the occasional creak as someone opened a locker, until Overton announced that it was time to take to the field, and they all stood up and mindlessly walked towards the doors that led to the field. John couldn’t remember a time when there was less cheer in walking out. Even when they faced King’s College, the public school that sometimes mosied out into the state school leagues for a slaughtering victory before they faced a larger public school, there was more energy in the team. Most of the players looked exceedingly glum, as if they knew before even going into the match that it wasn’t going to end well.

John sighed, and admitted to himself that he was thinking along those lines as well as he and the rest of the team shuffled onto the field, filing onto their bench and waiting for the match to start.

“Alright, boys,” Coach Overton said, setting his coffee on the grass before clasping his hands behind his back and starting to pace up and down the bench. “I know that the last week has been difficult for us. Without Staunton, we have little chance of winning this match. But that doesn’t matter. We are here to play a good game of rugby, so that’s what we’re going to do. Cooper, you’re temporary captain.” Liam Cooper, one of the three twelfth year students on the team, perked up a bit at that. “Choose two other starters and get out there for the coin toss,” Overton said, tossing the yellow armband to Liam and then moving to pick his coffee up once more.

The boy caught the armband, then scrambled up, suddenly more energized than before. “Watson and Tyler,” he announced, yanking the armband up over his sleeve quickly. “Let’s go, boys.” John stood, tugging briefly on the hem of his shorts before jogging onto the field after Cooper and Tyler. 

They lost the coin toss, and the other team kicked first. John played rough, keeping the ball moving when one of their players were down and scrambling to get it back when the other team had possession. He was tackled several times, and each landing hurt a little more than the last. About twenty minutes into the first half, the other team was up sixteen to three. The other team’s crowd was cheering like mad.

Five minutes later, they fouled and the referee called for a scrum. John sighed, and walked to his position in the rear of the other players. As he did, his eyes swept the stands. Harry was there, but her focus was on the cheerleaders. John frowned in her direction (not that she noticed), and felt the normal little nudge of worry that cropped up whenever she was a bit too blase in public. He sighed, then turned away and held his hands out for the ball from the ref, and as he did, noticed a lone figure standing near the end of the pitch.

“Sherlock,” he said, surprised.

The ref gave him an odd look. “In position, son,” he said.

John shook his head. “Right, sorry. Just my--” He paused for a moment, waving a hand towards Sherlock and thinking. “Friend,” he decided.

The ref frowned at him, and John ducked his head and joined the scrum, keeping his head tucked between Cooper and Tyler and wishing he had remembered his ear guards as they pushed against the other team. He half concentrated on ignoring the stench of sweat from the his other teammates and half concentrated on trying to keep the ball in the middle of the scrum. Suddenly the other team surged forward, and then he was on his back on the rough ground with someone else on top of him. Then there was a pressure on his leg. A painful one.

John gasped and shoved the player on top of him off, jerking up as the ref blew his whistle again. One of the players on the other team was grinning down at him.

“Sorry,” the tall boy said, sounding not sorry at all. One of his teammate shouted a laugh and clapped the boy on the back, even as the ref gave the penalty. John had half a mind to get up and throw a punch, but Coach Overton had already jogged onto the field. 

“You alright, Watson?” he asked, crouching down. John looked down at his leg, and could already see the bruise forming.

“Yeah,” he sighed, taking Mike’s extended hand and hauling himself up.

Overton nodded, then put a hand on John’s shoulder. “Come along, then. You’ll sit the rest of the match.”

John wasn’t happy about it, but he also didn’t want to risk any more bodily harm. He walked, with a slight limp, back to the bench and sat down next to the other players. Cool metal felt good on his thighs, a direct opposite to the dreadful feeling of watching his team get slaughtered, struggling to make any decent plays without Godfrey there to direct them. After about five minutes, a shadow fell over him.

“John,” Sherlock said. “We need to go.”

John turned and looked up at Sherlock, looming over the bench in his leather jacket. “We’re in the middle of a match,” John informed him.

“No, _they_ are in the middle of a match,” Sherlock corrected, hooking a hand around John’s arm and hauling him to standing. _“We_ are going to go find the Staunton’s milkman.”

John looked at his team, who, remarkably, were too distracted by the match to notice that Sherlock walked over. “Now?” he asked, annoyed, turning back to Sherlock.

“What are you doing, Watson?” Overton called, apparently catching sight of John standing.

Sherlock didn’t glance towards the coach. “Now,” he said seriously. Then he lifted his head. “I’m so sorry, Mister Overton, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to steal Mister Watson for a moment.”

“Excuse me?” Overton said. 

“Official Scotland Yard business,” Sherlock explained. “We might have found a lead on Godfrey Staunton’s disappearance. Afternoon.” Before the coach could get another word in, Sherlock tugged John away from the bench and back to the locker room. “Get your things. I won’t listen to you complain about them being locked up again,” he said.

John glared. “Don’t order me around,” he snapped, stomping to his locker. He tugged his uniform shirt over his head, and as he pulled his arms out, turned back towards Sherlock. “You can’t just show up in the middle of--” he started to say. Then he noticed the look on Sherlock’s face. It was a look of appreciation, with the gaze leveled around his chest and arms. Sherlock glanced back up and caught John staring at him, and unashamed, grinned.

John quickly turned back towards his locker, his complaint forgotten as heat washed over his face. His heart was pounding, and thoughts that had been living in the undercurrent of his mind were suddenly in the very front of his brain. Thoughts about what it would be like to touch Sherlock’s hair. Or how nicely his t-shirts fit.

John cleared his throat, roughly shoving those thoughts away, and pulled his button up on, quickly doing it up as he toed off his cleats. He pulled his sleeveless jumper over his head, then peeled off his socks, and as he hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his shorts, was very very aware of Sherlock standing behind him. John could still feel the greaser’s gaze, and just knew that there was a smirk on his mouth.

He closed his eyes for a moment, then very quickly tugged his shorts off. He practically leapt into his khakis, and heard Sherlock chuckle as he tried to yank them up quickly but only succeeded in getting caught around his feet. He forewent his belt in favor of shoving all his stuff into his duffle bag and his feet into his loafers, and with a slam of his locker door, turned back towards Sherlock. “I’m ready,” he said, over the echo of the slamming metal.

“Good. Let’s go,” Sherlock said, striding out of the locker room and back into the main school, metal doors banging as he threw them aside. John hurried after him, slinging his duffle over his shoulder as he followed Sherlock into the parking lot and straight to the motorbike.

“You’re going to have to hold you bag,” Sherlock said as he stuck the keys in the ignition. John sighed, then looked at the bike with trepidation. Sherlock huffed out an annoyed breath as he rolled his eyes. “You are going to have to get used to it if you want any hope of passing for a greaser tonight,” he snapped, reaching over and grabbing John’s arm to pull him onto the bike.

A loud cheer went up over at the rugby field as Sherlock said it, which distracted John until he caught ‘pass for a greaser’. “Wait,” John said, his leg kicking up and over the bike to avoid tripping over it automatically. “Sherlock, what do you mean, pass for a greaser?” he tried to ask, but the roar of the bike being started drowned his question out. He didn’t get another chance to ask, either, because Sherlock gunned it out of the parking lot. John swore and wrapped his hands around Sherlock’s waist tightly.

As they raced through London, John definitely didn’t think about how nice it felt to have them there.


	4. Chapter 4

“This feels weird.” 

Twenty minutes later, jeans were rough against his legs, and his arms felt bare with the tight fabric of the black t-shirt clinging to his shoulders.

“New jeans are always more coarse,” Sherlock called dismissively. He was in the bathroom that adjoined to his bedroom, digging through a cabinet for something.

John looked at himself in the mirror that was attached to the inside of Sherlock’s wardrobe. He had to admit that the t-shirt fit nicely, emphasizing his shoulders and chest, well-muscled from rugby. Other than his clothes fitting more tightly than usual, though, there wasn’t much that was different. He certainly didn’t look like a greaser, which was what Sherlock was trying to turn him into.

Perhaps the bare feet were part of the problem.

“Are my socks acceptable to wear?” he called to the bathroom. Sherlock poked his head out, and John held his socks up for inspection.

“They’ll do,” Sherlock said, flicking curly fringe to the side before disappearing back into the loo.

John nodded, even though Sherlock couldn’t see him, and sat down on the bed to put them on. As he pulled the second one over his toes, the banging around in the loo finally stopped.

“Here we are,” Sherlock said, emerging. A comb and a container of hair grease were tossed to John. He managed to catch them, but his sock hadn’t been pulled on enough and fell off of his foot. 

John stared down at the two items in his hands, at a loss for what to do. He looked back up at Sherlock, whose brow furrowed. “Don’t tell me you’ve never slicked back your hair,” he said. John shook his head. Sherlock groaned. “Fine,” he said, walking over and climbing onto the bed, behind John. 

“What are you doing?” John asked, twisting around to face him.

Sherlock scowled at him, putting his hands on John’s shoulders and making him face forward. “Greasing you hair, as you’ve not enough life experience to have done it yourself,” he said, snatching the grease and comb from John’s hands. The bed was across from the wardrobe, and the door with the mirror was still open from when John was admiring the fit of the shirt, which meant John could see Sherlock settling behind him, sitting on his ankles.

Sherlock started by combing through John’s hair briefly, quickly and without a thought spared for the possibility of John having a sensitive scalp (which, lucky for him, he didn’t). The comb was discarded after that though, and Sherlock picked up the can of grease.

“You’re going to have to let me move your head around,” he informed John.

“Okay.”

Sherlock’s long fingers carded into John’s hair, and he tilted John’s head to the left. Then he twisted the top off of the grease. Smearing a some onto his fingers, Sherlock started with the hair behind John’s right ear.

Even though he could see it coming, the cool grease still startled him, and John jumped and knocked Sherlock’s hand away. “That’s cold!” John yelped.

“Hold still!” Sherlock hissed. “You’re going to make me get it on your shirt!” He glared at John in the mirror, and for once, John supposed this wasn’t a time that he could glare back. He braced himself, and when Sherlock’s grease-coated fingers touched him again, he held still. Sherlock coated the roots of his hair with the grease, and then moved to another section. It was rather slow work, but John felt himself relaxing as Sherlock’s nimble fingers worked through his scalp. He was quick about it, and not ten minutes later John’s entire head of hair was full of grease.

“This is going to take forever to wash out,” he sighed as Sherlock climbed off the bed and stood in front of him.

“Stop complaining,” Sherlock said, picking up the comb and starting to part John’s hair. “It’s for the case.”

John grimaced as the comb caught his ear. “And if it’s for the case, it’s worth it?”

“Precisely,” Sherlock said, with a particularly hard yank.

“Ow,” John complained.

Sherlock ignored him and continued combing, moving hair this way and that, his brow furrowed in concentration.

Five minutes later, Sherlock put the comb down. “Done,” he announced, stepping back and admiring his work. John stood, and Sherlock stepped out of the way so that he could look in the wardrobe mirror.

“Wow,” John said. Unlike earlier, now he actually looked like a greaser. Sherlock had coaxed his hair up and bit and then back, so that it looked a good bit like James Dean. It completely changed his looks, going from a normal boy to something a bit more exciting. Possibly even...dangerous.

Well. Dangerous, once he got his other sock on. And perhaps some shoes.

Sherlock made an approving noise, then looked down at his watch. “It’s about seven thirty,” he said. “We should leave in about half an hour.”

“Where are we even going that requires me to dress like this?” John asked, getting down on his knees to search for the sock that hadn’t made it onto his foot.

John heard the bedsprings creak as Sherlock reclined on the mattress. “An abandoned lot behind a cafe. Archie Wells’s gang meets up there.”

John sat back on his heels, sock found and in hand. “Who’s Archie Wells?” he asked slowly.

“The milkman,” Sherlock said.

John nodded slowly. “And the police are going to be there too, right?” he asked.

Sherlock snorted. “Why on earth would they be there? It would scare everyone away, and all the trouble I went to to hunt Archie down will go to waste.”

“Sherlock!” John exclaimed.

“What?”

“We can’t just walk into a gang meeting! What if there’s a rumble or something?”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow at him. “Well then, mister scrum-back. I expect you’ll have to put your rugby skills to good use.”

John made an exasperated noise. Part of him wanted to back out and tell Sherlock he could go on his own, but the other, larger part was screaming for him to go and make sure Sherlock didn’t do something stupid and get himself killed. He sighed in resignation. “Are there certain shoes you want me to wear?” he asked, sitting down fully and finally tugging on his second sock.

Sherlock grinned at him, and then threw him a pair of Chucks. “Just twenty minutes now,” he said gleefully. “Then we get to find Godfrey Staunton.”

***

It turned out that they did not need to leave at eight to go to the abandoned lot. They had to leave at eight so that they could sit in a sandwich shop called Speedy’s and watch the abandoned lot. Not even really the lot itself, either. The alley that led to the abandoned lot.

“Aren’t you going to eat anything?” John asked, around a mouthful of ham and cheese.

Sherlock glared at him, surely for his lack of manners. “No,” he said, turning and looking back out of the window they were sitting next to.

John frowned. “Aren’t you hungry?” he asked.

“Eating slows the brain,” Sherlock said, matter of factly and not bothering to glance at him.

John’s frown deepened. “No it doesn’t,” he said in disbelief. “That’s utter bull.”

Sherlock turned away from the window to scowl at him fiercely. Then he snatched a crisp off of John’s plate and put it in his mouth. “Happy?” he spat, after he swallowed.

John frowned more. “No need to be a dick about it,” he muttered, letting Sherlock go back to his alley-watching once more. John, bored of the lot, instead let his gaze wander around the shop. It was small, with lots of small tables crowded with chairs. It wasn’t extraordinarily busy, the main lot of the dinner rush already served and gone, and as John looked around, he caught the girl behind the counter staring at his and Sherlock’s table. John became aware that he’d seen her looking at them several times as they’d been sitting there.

John’s brow furrowed. “Sherlock,” he muttered.

“Mmm?”

“That girl is staring at us,” John whispered, not taking his eyes off of the short girl with brown hair. She caught his gaze, immediately turned bright red, and ducked back into the kitchen.

“What girl?” Sherlock sighed, not taking his gaze off the window. 

“Well, she’s gone now,” John said, picking up his sandwich again. “But the one behind the counter.”

Sherlock waved a dismissive hand. “That’s just Molly, she’s harmless,” he said. They lapsed into silence for the next ten minutes or so, and John slowly finished eating his sandwich and crisps. A few minutes after that, the same brunette girl that Sherlock had dubbed Molly appeared by his table.

“You’re done?” she asked, a nervous smile stretching over her cheeks.

John smiled and nodded. “It was good,” he said. Molly’s smile became a bit less nervous and a bit more real, and she picked up his plate. 

“Do you want anything else?” she asked. “Do--do you want anything, Sherlock?”

“No,” Sherlock said, still not turning away from the window. “Unless it’s a coffee. Black, two sugars.”

Nervousness and the shaky smile returned to Molly’s face. “Okay,” she said.

“I’ll have one, too,” John said. “Just milk.”

“Okay,” Molly said again, then scampered away. 

John turned back to Sherlock, his smile falling off of his face. “You could be a little nicer,” he told Sherlock.

That pulled Sherlock away from the window. “What do you mean? I was perfectly civil,” he said, his pale eyes narrowing.

“No, you were abrasive. She’s obviously sweet on you. Would it kill you to think about her feelings a little bit?” John said.

Sherlock groaned. “I’m not interested, and I’m not having this conversation with you,” he said, turning back to his window.

John frowned at him, and they sat in silence until Molly brought two mugs of coffee to the table.

“Thanks,” John said, giving her another smile. When Sherlock didn’t say anything, John subtly kicked his shin with as much force as he could muster under the table. 

Sherlock gasped, but quickly bit it back when Molly looked at him curiously. “Thank you, Molly,” Sherlock said tightly, without a hint of sarcasm. Perhaps he thought John might kick him again.

The simple thank you made the girl light up, though. “You’re welcome,” she gushed. “Just let me know if you need anything else.” And then she turned away and walked towards the counter again, her step light.

“What the hell was that for?” Sherlock hissed as soon as she was out of earshot. “Is it not considered rude to lead people on?”

John took a sip of his coffee cooly, and didn’t respond. Sherlock huffed, then picked up his own mug and took a long draw. As he set his coffee down, Sherlock tugged the sleeve of his jacket up. “It’s nine fifteen now,” he said, then picked up his mug again and drained the rest in one large gulp. “Hurry up,” he told John. “We need to go.”

John was half-tempted to drink the rest of his coffee slowly, but when he took one small sip and Sherlock looked like he was about to his the mug to the ground, John quickly swallowed the rest of the hot liquid and stood up. Sherlock followed suit, pulling a wallet out of his pocket and throwing a tenner on the table just as John reached for his own.

“Wait, I can get my own--” John started to say.

“Let’s go,” Sherlock said, grabbing John’s arm and tugging him out of the shop.

It was quick dash across the street and into the alley, and from there, a quick walk to the abandoned lot. As they walked in, Sherlock pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and held it out to John.

John stared at the harmless-looking white stick. “You’ve got to be kidding,” he said in disbelief.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to smoke it. Just put it behind your ear. As if you were going to smoke, but got distracted and forgot about it.” Then he pulled out another cigarette and his lighter and stuck it in his mouth to actually smoke.

John sighed and did as he was told, the cig feeling foreign and uncomfortable and he tucked it behind his ear. 

“Now,” Sherlock said, striding into the lot confidently. “When Archie gets here, all we have to do is approach him and ask him casually about the letters. You’re not allowed to talk, you’ll give us away immediately.”

John frowned. “How do we tell which one’s Archie?” he asked.

Sherlock took a drag on his cigarette before answering. “He’s got red hair, and he’s gangly. He’ll also probably going to have a large duffel with him, because he works at an ice cream shop in addition to his milk route and wouldn’t dare show up in the uniform.”

John nodded, then settled in to wait. There wasn’t anyone else in the lot, and John felt conspicuous as he and Sherlock leaned against one of the buildings that was on the border of the lot. Slowly, though, a trickle of other greasers appeared in the lot, some coming from the same alley he and Sherlock used, others from different alleys, some seeming to pop up from nowhere. Sherlock finished his cigarette and tossed it away, and then leaned his head back and started drumming his fingers on his leg. 

About fifteen minutes into their wait, Sherlock elbowed John sharply in the ribs. John gasped, then looked up to glare. Sherlock inclined his head to the right, and John followed his gaze to look at a tall boy that had just entered the lot from one of the other alleys. It was undeniably Archie, if Sherlock’s description was correct, which John had no doubt that it was. He even had a large duffel bag, which he tossed down quickly in favor of greeting his other gang members.

John lifted an eyebrow at Sherlock in question, and the greaser nodded in response. They waited until Archie was alone, then walked up to the boy.

“Hey, mate,” Sherlock said, digging into his pocket and pulling out a box of cigs. “Care for a smoke?”

Archie looked between John and Sherlock suspiciously. “Sure,” he said slowly, taking a cigarette out of Sherlock’s proffered box, digging a lighter out of his pocket as Sherlock did the same. As they both lit, Archie looked over at John. “Aren’t ‘choo gonna have one?” he asked around the cig.

John shrugged. “My girl doesn’t like the taste of them,” he lied, before remembering that he wasn’t supposed to be talking. He glanced at Sherlock who looked like he was caught somewhere between annoyed and impressed.

“Shame, mate,” Archie said, inhaling deeply and then exhaling a stream of smoke. Sherlock’s expression became one that was simply impressed instead of annoyed. He schooled it away when Archie turned back to him, though. “So, can I do anything to help you lads?” Archie asked.

“Yes, actually. We’re looking for Godfrey Staunton. You see, he and John had a wager on tonight’s rugger match between St Luke’s and Kaplan. John wagered that St Luke’d win by a margin of fifteen or more, Godfrey said he’s mad and that Kaplan would win by a landslide. John’s won, though, and Godfrey’s disappeared. You have any idea where we could find him?” Sherlock said.

At the mention of Godfrey’s name, Archie had tensed up. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

Sherlock faked surprise. “Really? ‘Cause I’ve seen you deliver the milk on his street before. Godfrey’s an early riser, surely he’s met you at the door before.”

Archie’s jaw tightened. “Thanks for the smoke,” he said tightly, tossing the cig to the ground and grinding the butt under his shoe, then reaching down and picking up his duffel.

“C’mon,” Sherlock said, stepping in front of Archie and keeping him from walking away. “Help a mate out.”

“I’m not your mate,” Archie said hotly, and suddenly there were several other greasers around them.

“Is something wrong here?” a taller one asked, cracking his knuckles in what John supposed was supposed to be intimidating, but he was slipping into the mindset of the young boy that had grown up on a rougher council estate than the one he currently lived on and had played rugby for about ten years now. The boy wasn’t that muscular, and was favoring his left leg.

Sherlock smiled winningly. “Nothing wrong, just trying to ask a simple question,” he said.

“Doesn’t seem to be the case to me,” another greaser said. This one was a bit bulkier, but a good tackle would put him down and for the count.

Unconsciously, John was loosening his stance, ready to lunge at whichever greaser decided to throw a punch first.

“Why don’t you take your questions somewhere else,” the third greaser said.

“I don’t think I will,” Sherlock challenged, and John mentally cursed him.

The the greasers exchanged a look with Archie, who nodded his head once. The bulky one looked back to Sherlock and John, and then stepped forward. “Then you don’t have any more questions,” he said, and reared back to throw a punch at Sherlock. 

John had been waiting for the blows to start, and immediately leapt at the greaser, leaning over and putting his shoulder straight in the boy’s stomach with a grunt, which had the advantage of both knocking the air out of him and getting him on the ground. John leapt back up, and saw Sherlock handling the tallest greaser, and he turned to the third one.

This boy was wiry and small, about John’s height. The boy grinned, then pulled a knife out of his pocket.

John’s blood got a little colder, but instead of letting it show he stepped in closer and tried to disarm the boy. The greaser was waiting for him, though, and switched hands as John got closer, swinging the knife down and narrowly missing John’s arm. John gritted his teeth, stood still for a moment and let the other boy study him. Then he jerked out, punching the boy in the stomach.

The wiry greaser gasped and doubled over, and John used the opportunity to grab his wrist and force the knife from his hands, then swept the boy’s feet out from under him and sent him tumbling to the ground.

John was starting to feel good about himself when suddenly a fist collided with his jaw, and he stumbled back a few steps. Turning, he saw that the bulky guy had gotten up again, and was apparently fighting-ready. Grimacing, he fisted his hand and, without hesitating, threw it up and into the other boy’s face. He reared back, clutching his nose. 

When the boy brought his hand away from his face, blood was trickling down from his nose. He made a fist and drew back to throw another punch, and John’s legs tensed, ready to duck.

“Stop!” Sherlock shouted suddenly. The bulky greaser froze, and both he and John turned to look at him. He had the other boy in what looked to be an extremely painful hold. “Any more, and I break his arm,” Sherlock threatened. John heard twin gasps from the two greasers he had been fighting. “We’re done,” Sherlock continued. “You can either walk away now, or walk away in a minute to take your friend to the hospital.”

The wiry greaser didn’t even hesitate. He was off like a bullet from a gun. The burly greaser was a bit slower, trying to call Sherlock’s bluff. Sherlock raised an eyebrow, and tightened his grip on the other boy, causing him to cry out.

“Okay!” the greaser said, turning and jogging away. Satisfied, Sherlock released the boy in his grip, whom fell to his knees, then scrambled up and ran.

Sherlock scoffed, then turned to John. “Are you alright?” he asked, pointing to his jaw.

John shrugged. “You okay?”

Sherlock nodded in response, and then they both turned to Archie, who, at some point in the scuffle, had taken a blow to the face and fell down, where he was still sitting. As Sherlock and John came closer, he held his hands up. “Don’t hurt me!” he cried. “What do you want? I’ll tell you!”

Sherlock sent a of loathing to John, rolling his eyes, before turning back to Archie. “The address of the person you’ve been bringing notes to from Godfrey Staunton,” he said flatly.

Again, Archie froze up. Perhaps milkmen weren’t supposed to also act as a go-betweens, because suddenly Archie was scrambling down the alley.

“Oi!” John shouted, immediately breaking into a run after him, quickly catching up and tackling him to the ground. “You’re not going anywhere,” John growled, looming over the boy. “Now tell us where you took the notes,” he said, lifting Archie’s torso off the ground with a fistful of his shirt.

“F-four thirty seven Sycamore,” Archie stuttered out. “Doctor Leslie Armstrong.” John glanced back at Sherlock, who nodded, then let the boy fall to the ground. Archie scrambled up and tore away from them.

John shook his head at the boy’s retreat, then stood fully and brushed his hands off on his jeans. He ran a hand along his jaw and could feel where it was already swollen and would be a bruise in the morning. He looked over at Sherlock, who was staring at him with a glint in his eye that John didn’t quite recognize nor could quite identify. “Let’s get out of here and go find Godfrey, yeah?” he said, tilting his head towards the alley. Sherlock nodded, and together they walked away from the abandoned lot. 

They walked into the alley, and then Sherlock took the lead, winding through different alleys expertly, until suddenly he stopped and turned around to face John.

“What is it?” John asked, backing into the wall and Sherlock stalked up to him.

“You are unbelievably hot,” Sherlock said, then ducked his head down and attached his lips to John’s.

John made a shocked noise, but quickly sunk into the kiss. All that was going through his head was _yes yes yes_. It was everything he had wanted to do with Sherlock without realizing that this is what he wanted to do.

Sherlock sucked on his lower lip, pulling it into his mouth, and John moaned, his arms coming up and finding root in the short hair at the base of Sherlock’s neck. Sherlock licked at his lips for permission to enter John’s mouth, and John eagerly granted access, allowing his mouth to be plundered. All he could do was pull Sherlock closer as the greaser utterly dominated him with the kiss.

After a while, Sherlock had to pull back to take a breath. One kiss, and they were both panting. “I’ve been wanting to do that for quite a while now,” Sherlock said.

“Oh really,” John breathed. “Since when?”

“Since I broke into your room for the first time,” Sherlock said without hesitation. Then he leaned forward and put his lips next to John’s ear. “I suspected this would be pleasant. On the roof, though, I became sure, and later I’m going to _ravish_ you”

John’s breath hitched, and he shuddered, and there was a sudden redirection of blood in his body. He pulled Sherlock back down and recaptured his lips, relishing the slide of tongues. And then Sherlock pressed _closer_ and suddenly their hips were aligned and John moaned again, the feeling intoxicating as he rocked his hips forward, and then--

Sherlock drew back with a gasp, and John whined. “We have to finish the case,” Sherlock said, his voice rougher and deeper than usual, and John had never heard a sound so lovely. “We are _not_ having messy handjobs in an alley.”

John flushed, partially at the crassness of the word ‘handjob,’ and partially at the idea of Sherlock having his hand down John’s pants, or having _his_ hand down _Sherlock’s_ pants, and how good of an idea that sounded. “Why not?” he stuttered, still out of breath.

Sherlock’s eyes glinted as a devilish grin broke over his face. “I have better plans,” he said, and John’s jeans were suddenly tighter than they had been before. “But first. Find the boy,” Sherlock reminded him.

“Right,” John said faintly. “Let’s go do that then.” And then Sherlock pulled away completely, and John had to take a few breaths before he gathered himself enough to push off of the wall and fall into step alongside Sherlock, albeit with a bit wider of a stride than usual as they walked across the street to get the motorbike from outside of Speedy’s.

***

Sherlock drove them to the nicer part of London, straight to the address that Archie had given them. The house they stopped at was rather large, with two cars outside of it.

“What time is it?” John asked as they climbed off of the motorbike. Sherlock pulled his sleeve back to look at his watch.

“Nearly ten,” he said, letting his arm fall back down and making his way towards the front door, pushing through the waist-high metal gate.

John hurried after him. “Bit late for a call,” he muttered as they mounted the front porch.

Sherlock glanced over at him with a raised brow and small smirk. “Yes, but I want to finish this case so I can take you home with me.”

John felt his cheeks flush as Sherlock reached out and rang the doorbell. He didn’t have a chance to say anything before footsteps came towards them from the inside of the house, and the door was pulled open by a man in his mid-fifties. “What do you want?” he asked gruffly. “You know it’s quite late, it’s extremely rude of you to be calling at this hour.”

“Very sorry, Doctor Armstrong,” Sherlock said. The man looked surprised. “We’re just here to say hello to Godfrey.”

The man reared back. “What--what complete and utter poppycock, my dear boy!” he exclaimed. “Godfrey? Surely you don’t mean Godfrey Staunton, the rugby lad who’s gone and run away from home?”

Sherlock stepped into the house, forcing Armstrong back. He looked around, presumably appraising, but John could see his eyes rapidly flicking around and knew he was deducing. “Yes, him exactly,” Sherlock said, turning back to the man. “I know he’s been sending notes to you through the milkmen, and now that I’ve been here, it’s dreadfully obvious what’s happened.” Sherlock turned and started mounting the stairs that lead from the entryway to the second floor. “Come along, John,” he said.

“You stop right there!” Armstrong shouted. “Or I’ll call the police!”

“Please do,” Sherlock said. “I’m sure they’d love to close the missing person’s case that’s been open for nearly a week now. Come _on,_ John.”

John quickly followed Sherlock up the stairs, and Armstrong followed them, still shouting at them not to go any further. Sherlock heeded no warning, though, and continued barging up the stairs and down the hall of the second landing. He paused a moment, sussing things out, and then opened the third door they passed.

“And here we are,” Sherlock said. “One missing rugby player, and a deathly ill pinned that no-one knew about. Oh, and look. They’re committed.”

John peered into the room, and sure enough, there was Godfrey, lying on a bed next to a girl who looked far too thin and pale to be healthy. When the door was thrown open, Godfrey had roused, lifting his head up. “Doctor?” he rumbled. “What’s going on?”

“You’ve been found, my boy,” Doctor Armstrong grumbled, glaring at Sherlock and John.

Sherlock snorted. “Please. The only reason it’s taken this long is because your milkman decided to take an impromptu holiday. The police would have been here in the morning, and even if you managed to walk up the attic stairway before they made it up here, there are no less than sixteen tells downstairs, the largest and most idiotic being the trainers that are far too big for you, Doctor Armstrong, left by the door.” The doctor looked indignant, and Godfrey’s face was panicked. Sherlock turned to John. “And now that this waste of my time is over, we’re leaving.” With that, he stalked out of the room, brushing past John on his way.

John stood frozen for a moment, then jerked after him. “I’m sorry?” he said.

Sherlock was pulling his leather jacket around himself, doing the lower snap and pulling on the zipper, about to go down the stairs. “We’re leaving,” he repeated, his curls bouncing as he quickly trotted down the stairs.

John glanced over his shoulder, back into the room. The doctor was leaning over the young woman, checking her pulse while Godfrey stared at John. “Sorry, mate, but you had us all worried,” John said to him, before taking off after Sherlock. A spike of anger had shot through him. 

The greaser was already out the front door, striding down the front walk and towards his motorbike. It was coming close to ten thirty now, and the only light came from the streetlamps that ran up and down the street.

“Oi!” John shouted, jogging down after him. Sherlock turned around, then gave John a sharp grin. 

“Come along, John,” he said. “We’ve things to do.” He looked delighted with himself, his bright eyes alight and mouth not marred into its usual frown. Really, John should have found it overwhelmingly sexy, but his anger washed everything away as he stomped towards the greaser.

He made it down the walkway and through the gate, slamming it closed behind him. “Is that it?” he asked, words clipped.

Sherlock had turned back around and started mounting his motorbike. “Is what ‘it’?” he asked, not looking at John as he dug through his pockets for his keys.

Sherlock’s indifference only made John angrier. “That,” he said, throwing a hand back towards the house. “Oh, we found the missing boy, look how stupid his hiding place is, now let’s go fuck.” John practically spit the last word.

Sherlock lifted his head, brow furrowing. “What more did you expect?” he asked, sounding genuinely confused.

John stared at him for a moment, a laugh huffing out of his mouth. 

A true frown creased Sherlock’s mouth. “What?” he said, his tone now more annoyed than confused.

John was quiet for a moment, baffled by Sherlock’s lack of emotion. “What more did I expect?” he repeated. “Sherlock, you announced that they’re engaged. That girl was obviously deathly ill--”

Sherlock interrupted him with a snort. “Sentiment,” he muttered. 

John glared at him. “All we did was walk up a set of stairs and throw a door open. You didn’t say one word to Godfrey. You haven’t even explained to me how you figured out where Artie--”

“Archie,” Sherlock corrected, interrupting again.

John felt his lips twist into what was surely a fierce snarl. Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Come on, John,” he moaned. “What does this have to do with anything?”

“What do you mean, what does it have to do with anything?” John said. His voice was raised, he was nearly yelling. “It has everything to do with this! There are people that are worried out of their skulls about Godfrey, and you don’t seem to give a damn!” he snapped.

“Frankly, I don’t,” Sherlock said, tone fierce. He lifted himself off of the bike, drawing up to his full height once more. “Sentiment is the plague of humankind, it drives you all to idiocy and drastic measures, and for what?”

“Healthy, normal relationships?” John supplied, crossing his arms over his chest.

Sherlock scoffed, body twisting around in aggravation as he said, “Normal. What’s the fun in normal?”

“Well then what was about to happen tonight, Sherlock?” John snapped, throwing his arms out. “You said you were going to take me home. What, was it just going to be sex?”

Sherlock ran a hand through his hair, his brows furrowing angrily. John waited for him to say something, but the greaser stayed silent, his hand closing in his hair and tugging on dark curls.

“Great. That’s just great,” John said, his hands coming to rest on his hips. “Not only am I an idiot for caring about people, but you also don’t give a single damn about me. That’s real nice, Sherlock.”

“Why should I?” Sherlock snarled. His hands came out of his hair and started gesturing wildly as he spoke. “Why should I care at all about the rugby-playing son of two drunks that begged me to take a case where the only interesting thing was finding a milkman that was too stupid to tell anyone he was going to Sussex to visit his mother. Tell me, John,” he said, stepping into John’s personal space and looming over him. “Why I should give one single, _flying_ fuck about you.”

John felt his jaw tighten as an unbidden, but sharp and hot stab of hurt shot through his heart. He stared up at Sherlock’s steely, angry gaze, searching for anything that might give a different sign. Finding nothing, he gave a single, slow nod. He took a step back, then did a ninety degree turn and started walking away.

“Where are you going?” Sherlock called after him.

“Home,” John snapped, not looking back. He heard muttered cussing, and a few moments later, the roar of the motorbike starting.

A moment later, Sherlock was riding alongside him. “Let me drive you home,” he sighed.

John looked straight ahead. “Sorry, I didn’t think you gave a single, _flying_ fuck about me,” he spat.

He didn’t look, but John could picture Sherlock’s scowl. “You’ve got my shoes,” Sherlock said. If he hadn’t just given an awful speech about the downfalls of sentiment, John would have thought it was a last-bid plea to get him on the bike. Now, he supposed, it was an actual complaint.

John stopped walking long enough to yank the damned things off his feet and hurl them at Sherlock. Then he continued his trek, still refusing to look over. There was a thud as the shoes hit either the bike or the greaser himself, and then the crank of the engine as Sherlock sped up to pull up alongside him once more.

“Don’t be an idiot, John,” Sherlock said once more. John didn’t dignify the comment with a response. There was a moment where the only sound was the purr of the engine. “Fine,” Sherlock snapped. “That’s just _fine_.” The engine roared again, and then Sherlock sped forward and past John, quickly disappearing from sight.

As soon as he was gone, John let out a deep breath he didn’t realize he had been holding. He felt like he was going to shatter. Which was ridiculous, because obviously he hadn’t known Sherlock at all. He rubbed his arms as the chill of the night air finally registered, the heat of his anger subsiding as Sherlock disappeared.

It took him nearly half an hour to walk home. By the time he got there, his feet and arms were numb, the shortsleeve shirt and socks offering little to no warmth. Pissed at the world in general now, he banged his way into the flat, not bothering with his usual caution as he entered. His mother was sitting in her usual chair with her usual drink in hand and the telly on her usual channel. “Where have you been?” she snapped immediately.

“Out,” John said, ignoring her as he went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. He blindly grabbed the first bottle of soda his hand landed on, then straightened and closed the fridge.

“Why on earth are you dressed like that? What did you do to your _hair?”_

“Not now, Mum,” John said, walking across the living room and towards the bathroom. He could hear his mother saying something else, but he ignored it, closing and locking the door and blocking out her voice. He flipped the lid on the toilet down and sat heavily. He lowered his head into his hands, groaning loudly as he tried to sort through his roiling emotions.

He was angry. Unbelievably so. Not only about what Sherlock had said about him, but about his complete and utter lack of regard for others’ emotions. And he was _hurt_. He had thought he was, if not important to Sherlock, at least some kind of an asset. He knew Sherlock didn’t have a lot of friends, it was obvious the first time you met him. John had thought he had made some kind of connection with Sherlock, and somehow over the course of a whirlwind week, had developed a crush.

John breathed a quiet laugh. If that didn’t make him sound like a primary school student, he didn’t know what did. He ran his hands over his face, then stood and twisted the faucets on in the shower, setting the water to the hottest temperature possible. He yanked the black shirt over his head, and after a moment of debate, chucked it into the bin. His socks, which were rather worn to begin with, had holes from walking on rough pavement through London, so John binned them as well. The jeans followed suit. He stripped off his pants, and, unable to find a flaw with them, shoved them into the laundry hamper. 

The hot water pounded against his back, warming away the last chills that had been lingering on his skin. He scrubbed his hair roughly, forcing the grease out of his hair. Unbidden, the memory of Sherlock’s nimble fingers rubbing the grease in raced through his mind, causing a shiver to run down his spine. A hot surge of anger followed, and John grit his teeth and scrubbed harder, forcing his thoughts to stay neutral.

When John emerged from the shower, the hot water was running out and his scalp felt scrubbed raw. He toweled himself off, then wrapped the towel around his waist and darted into his room. He went about getting dressed, pulling on pyjamas and running his fingers through his hair. He turned towards his bed. Neatly folded, his clothes from earlier in the day and the bag with his rugby uniform were sitting primly on top of his blanket.

John practically saw red as he scooped the things up and hurled them into the corner of his room. There was a dull thunk as the bag hit the wall, his cleats no doubt the cause of the noise.

He thought he had made it clear that he didn’t want to have contact again any time soon, but Sherlock had gone ahead and broke into his room.

A small voice in the back of his head reminded him that it was to return his things, but the larger, angrier part of him ignored that as John threw himself into bed, jerking the covers over himself. He tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable. After nearly half an hour, he gave up and flopped on his back, and spent a large portion of the night staring at the ceiling. His thoughts oscillated, replaying the entire argument over and over and desperately wishing it hadn’t happened. When he finally fell asleep, it was with the knowledge that he would never overestimate Sherlock Holmes again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooooh my god this is finally, finally, finally done. I can't believe it took this long.
> 
> Huge, huge, _huge_ thanks to [Nay](http://www.cptn-jhw.tumblr.com) for all the help and being a fantastic person through this whole thing.
> 
> Beta'd, but not britpicked. Americanisms are 100% mine.

When John went back to school on Monday, the situation was the exact opposite as it had been the week before. He saw Sherlock everywhere. In the halls, the cafeteria, even once when he made a trip to the loo during class. John forcibly ignored him, refusing to meet his eyes or respond the time he heard Sherlock say his name in the hallway.

Instead of thinking about it more, John threw himself into his classes, taking detailed notes to make up for his distraction the previous week. His concentration lasted until his final class, when he was tapped on the shoulder halfway through the teacher’s lecture about sixteenth century explorers. John twisted in his seat. The girl that sat behind him (What was her name again? Something with an A.) held a folded piece of paper between her fingers. She looked straight at him, chewing her gum and waiting for him to take the paper. John reached out and grabbed it, nodding in thanks. The girl blew a bubble in response and John, slightly confused, turned back towards the front.

Glancing at the teacher, he carefully unfolded the note. It was from Mike. John risked another glance over his shoulder and towards the other boy, who raised an eyebrow at him and subtly pointed towards the note.

John looked back down. The note read, _Are you alright? Your greaser friend has been badgering me all day. He says he’s sorry. What happened? -Mike_

John scowled down at the piece of paper. He didn’t want to hear an apology through a second party, and he certainly didn’t like Sherlock bothering his friends. With another glance at the teacher, he quietly ripped a piece of paper out of his notebook and scrawled back a reply.

_Nothing happened. If he bothers you again tell him I said to bugger off._

John subtly slipped the note over his shoulder and to the bubblegum girl, who took it from his fingers. He didn’t get a reply during the class, but Mike joined him as they walked out.

“Watson, if you can tell me nothing happened with a straight face, then I’ll believe you. Otherwise, I’m calling bullshit,” Mike said as they shouldered past other people in the hallway.

John frowned. “Nothing happened,” he said, his tone dead. Mike snorted, but let it go as they walked across the school and into the locker room for rugby practice. They changed slowly, John’s mind blissfully blank as Mike prattled on about something that he didn’t have to listen to or remember later. Before the team walked out onto the pitch, Coach Overton stepped out of his office and announced that Godfrey had reappeared, but due to circumstances, would be benched for a week and Cooper would remain captain for the rest of the year.

 _So Sherlock did go to the police_ , John thought, falling in step with Mike as they walked to the field. The rest of the team was significantly happier than they’d been in the past week, and the practice went better than it had since Godfrey’s running away. So well, in fact, that the other boys were cheering as they stampeded off the pitch later that evening.

“We are going to _cream_ Saint Luke’s!” Liam Cooper crowed, jumping up and slapping the top doorframe as they filed into the locker room. A cheer of agreement went up through the rest of the team.

Jason Tyler, the boy that had done the coin toss with John and Cooper the week before, leapt onto one of the benches. “Forget about Saint Luke’s,” he hollered, effectively quieting them once more. “If we play like that next Tuesday, we could beat Bernard’s College!”

John didn’t take part of the roar of approval that rang through the locker room, only smiling faintly as he moved towards his things and changed quickly. He was exhausted, and wanted nothing more than to go home, do his homework, and go to bed. So he changed quickly, bid Mike farewell, and evacuated the rowdy locker room as fast as he could.

The rest of the week followed much the same. On Wednesday, they beat Saint Luke’s by a large margin. The school’s spirits were running so high on Thursday that barely anyone made a fuss over Godfrey’s return. He didn’t offer up information about his disappearance to anyone, even the rugby boys. At that evenings practice he played as hard of the rest of them, but was stony-faced and silent afterwards.

John worked and and played harder than he had all year, thinking that if he threw himself back into his life with enough force, it might distract him from the previous weeks and his brief (it was _brief_ , goddammit) infatuation with Sherlock Holmes. On Friday, though, the knot of anger at Sherlock was still tight in his chest, and as much as John told himself that he was over the greaser, he also knew in the back of his mind that you don’t harbor anger towards someone you don’t care about.

He spent most of the weekend avoiding that thought. Or, at least, tried to avoid thinking about it. But he finished his homework in record time on Friday evening, and woke up far too early Saturday morning, if the dim light was anything to go by.

With a groan, he turned his head towards his bedside table. The clock read about six fifty. John huffed and closed his eyes, trying to will himself back to sleep. In the quiet, he could hear almost everything in the flat. Pipes gurgling, footsteps from upstairs neighbors. A window being pushed up made him jerk upwards and twist quickly, thinking Sherlock was breaking into his room again. He didn’t let the thought ‘to apologize’ tag onto it.

But his window was closed, and a moment later he heard the dull thud of a stumbling body hitting the wall from Harry’s room. He deflated for a moment, before he remembered his anger and became annoyed with himself for being disappointed.

John laid in bed for another half hour, frustrated with himself and his life. Then he sighed, and got out of bed, wondering what he could possibly do to avoid moping around the flat for the next two days. His mother actually had shifts at work this weekend, and Harry would undoubtedly be absent, either sleeping in her room or out with friends. Which left him alone in the flat.

John sighed, then shuffled out to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

***

The weekend dragged, and John had never been so glad for the school week to begin. He had spent the weekend purging the flat of the garbage that had built up while he had been distracted with Sherlock, binning week-old takeout from the refrigerator and clearing out the dirty clothes that had piled up in his room. His day on Monday passed in a pleasantly fast blur. Mike didn’t say anything about Sherlock badgering him again, which gave John some satisfaction (and a tiny twinge of disappointment that he resolutely ignored.)

Monday evening rolled into Tuesday morning, which quickly rolled into the afternoon. The school’s energy running high as the rugby match against Bernard’s College approached, their excitement from the win the previous week reasserting itself. It was contagious, and by the last hour of the day, John was bouncing his leg constantly, completely unable to focus on what the history teacher was lecturing.

Twenty minutes before class ended, the teacher seemed to give up on keeping the students’ attention. “You’ve chapter twelve of your textbook to read,” he announced, the snap of the map banging on chalkboard as it rolled up shocking several students out of their heads. “I suggest you use this time wisely. You may work in pairs to answer the questions at the back of the book.”

The class immediately broke into noise, conversations that had previously been carried out in undertones exploding to full volume, shuffling as bags were unzipped to retrieve textbooks, and loud groans from the floor as desks were dragged towards the occupant’s friends.

Mike appeared in the desk next to John, sliding in as the previous occupant joined her friends in the back of the room. “You ready for this?” he asked.

John gave a tight smile. “Ready for it to be over. I forgot my earguards again.”

Mike winced in sympathy. Bernard’s College was notorious for “accidentally” knocking the ball out of play. “You’ll be alright, mate,” he said.

With a sigh, John glanced at the clock above the chalkboard. Fifteen minutes left of class. “Think he’ll let us leave ten minutes early?” he asked Mike, nodding his chin towards the teacher.

Mike lifted an eyebrow. “Havensworth? In your dreams, Watson.”

John gave a good-natured groan, grinning as he slid down in his desk and waited for the rest class to pass.

It turns out he didn’t have long to wait. “Watson, Stamford.” John and Mike both looked to the front of the classroom. Mr. Havensworth beckoned them up to his desk. “Now, I understand you boys have a very good chance of winning tonight’s match, correct?” the professor said.

John glanced at Mike, who shrugged. “Cooper seems to have it in his mind that nothing can stop us,” John said, looking back to the teacher.

Havensworth nodded slowly, leaning back in his chair. “And would it help if two starters were to be at the field a little early in order to warm up sufficiently?”

John felt the corner of his mouth twitch upwards. “I believe so, sir.”

“I see,” Havensworth said, mirroring John’s grin. “You must understand, boys. I’d really like to see a victory over Bernard’s. I’ve a colleague there who’s been on about their undefeated season since their first match.”

“Yes, sir,” Mike said. “Rest assured, we all really think we could break that streak for them.”

A few minutes later John and Mike were walking down the hall and towards the fieldhouse. Chatter was pouring from classrooms and into the hallways, the other teachers clearly having the same problem of attention span as Havensworth. Most of the team was already in the locker room when Mike and John arrived, and high spirits carried them through the final bell, Overton's pep talk that was hardly necessary with the team's mood, and warmups out on the field.

At least, until the team from Bernard's College arrived.

"Holy shit," Jason Tyler said. "They're _massive_."

John stared the other boys filing onto the field, dressed in the white and blue striped shirts of their school. Massive, indeed- the smallest one easily had three inches on John. Godfrey was the biggest boy on their team, but even he looked cowed as three boys from St. Bernard's walked over and asked for a ball to warm up with. All three were taller than Godfrey, and two of them had more muscle.

"Stretch!" Overton hollered, and John tore his eyes away from the other team. The previous high spirits had shifted, turning into an air of nervous tension.

“Don’t worry, you lot,” Liam Cooper said as he stretched his arms. His face was pinched, obviously in some distress but attempting to hide it for their sakes. “We can still win this.”

It appeared he would be right, as well. Within the first five minutes, they had already scored. St. Bernard’s team may have been huge, but they were for the most part slow and disorganized. The team’s spirits lifted once more, and they passed the ball back and forth easily, recovering from the other team and passing back to theirs with grace. John ran back and forth, always near the ball, keeping it moving between players and teams.

It was a clean game. By the end of the first half, they were still up, though St. Bernard’s was only a handful of points behind.

“Alright, boys,” Liam Cooper said. “We’ve just got to hold the margin for another half. If we can do that, we can all bring a girl to Covey’s for floats and burgers afterwards to celebrate.”

The idea of a giant group date seemed to bring an even higher edge to most of the team’s spirits. John smiled and nodded with most of them, but in his mind he grimaced. He couldn’t well skip out on a celebratory dinner with the team, but he’d also be asked far too many questions if he came without a girl.

The ref blew his whistle, and as John jogged out onto the field he scanned the faces of the cheering crowd in an attempt to not think about what would happen if he brought Sherlock Holmes instead of a girl. He could ask Sarah, he supposed, eyes landing on her as the ball came towards him and he easily tossed it to Jason Tyler. She was nice enough, sat near him in his biology class.

One of the other team’s members came thundering down the field, ball nicked from Jason and in hand. John scuffled with him for a moment and was able to get his hands on the ball, which promptly made its way into Godfrey’s arms. Godfrey flew down the field and managed to wrestle his way into the endzone and score the team another handful of points.

There was also Mary Morstan, John thought, jogging backwards as he tracked the ball’s movement. But she didn’t always come to these things, and it wouldn’t make sense to ask her if she wasn’t here. John glanced back towards the stands, eyes flicking back and forth between the field and the crowd as he tried to locate the blonde.

Just as his eyes started to move from the field and back to the stands for maybe the fifth time, John registered that there was a rather large player coming towards him at a very high speed. Before he could manage to pull his gaze back towards the game, his eyes landed on a person on the stands.

Time seemed to freeze for a moment, long enough for John to register that yes, that was Sherlock Holmes, his hands white-knuckled on rail that separated the bleachers from the pitch, and yes, he was staring right at John, his expression knowing and horrified.

The next second, time caught up with itself, and John was suddenly mowed down by the boy that he had seen running towards him. There was an endless moment that he was up in the air, completely without control of his body, and the next, John came slamming down onto the earth.

_Pain. Oh God, pain._

***

“John!” “John, can you hear us?”

White hot pain in his left shoulder kept John from saying anything beyond a feeble groan.

“Oh my god.” “Where’s the medic?” “Shit, don’t touch him! He might have a concussion!”

“You _idiots_ ,” a familiar voice cut through. “He didn’t land on his _head_ , he landed on his _shoulder_.”

John groaned again in agreement. It seemed that his eyes were closed. Something nudged him, and the resulting explosion of pain that came searing from his shoulder made him feel like he was going to throw up. He decided that his eyes were probably better off closed, at this point.

"He needs the hospital. The medic isn't going to be able to do anything," Sherlock said. He seemed to be somewhere to John’s left, near his head.

Grass crunched somewhere nearby John’s head as someone kneeled next to him. “John? You with us?” It was Mike’s voice.

John managed a groan that he hoped was agreeing, and nodded his head once sharply, trying not to move his shoulder.

“That’s good, at least,” Mike said.

“I told you he didn’t land on his head.” Sherlock’s voice was venomous.

There was more crunching of grass, and the feeble light that could make its way through his eyelids darkened as someone leaned over John. Overton’s voice was there, explaining to whom John presumed was the medic what had happened.

“Alright John,” the medic said, his voice low. If he hadn’t been in agony, John might have called it soothing. “We’re going to turn you over. Boys, if you would.”

Several pairs of hands grasped John along his left side, someone barking to avoid his shoulder. Despite bracing himself for the pain of being moved, John didn’t quite manage to stifle his yell. The sound that was ripped from his throat was strangled and animalistic. He had to grit his teeth as the medic poked and prodded gently, hisses and grunts escaping. One particular spot made him cry out. There was a sigh from somewhere up above him.

“Definitely fractured,” the medic said, no doubt talking to Overton. “Isn’t anything I can do. He needs the hospital, where they can x-ray and make a better diagnosis.”

“I told you people this _nearly ten minutes ago_ ,” Sherlock said. “If you idiots had bothered to listen--”

“Sh’lock,” John rasped. “‘Nuff.”

There was a moment of silence, and then an audible click that John assumed was Sherlock snapping his jaw closed, cutting off what was surely going to be a long, scathing insult to all the involved’s intellect.

“Alright then,” the medic said. “If someone could run and call for an ambulance, then?”

***

The ride to the hospital had not been comfortable. Getting him onto a stretcher had been a tedious, painful experience despite his teammate’s and the EMT’s best efforts for it to be otherwise. The x-ray had show that John had acquired a fractured scapula. Thankfully, it was not so broken that he needed surgery, but it did have to be immobilized in a complicated sling for three to four months. The cab ride home and changing into pyjamas with the help of his mum were blurred by painkillers. They were strong enough to make John loopy, but not so strong that he was able to fall asleep in his bed.

The position his mum had settled him into was not comfortable. But whenever John tried to shift, dull pain flared in his shoulder. So he spent several hours staring at his ceiling, brain made dumb by artificial relief.

So dulled was he to the world, John hardly moved when his window slid up at some point during the darkest part of the night. “Sherlock!” he said, as brightly as one who was both knocked up on pain medication and severely lacking in sleep could.

The greaser froze midway through climbing into his room. “John,” he said, his voice low a quiet. “I didn’t think you’d be up.”

John hummed in agreement, turning his head back towards the ceiling. “My shoulder hurts,” he said.

He heard Sherlock scoff. “I would think so.” There were quiet footsteps as the greaser approached the bed. “Idiots, no wonder you can’t sleep. You’ve got too much weight on your shoulder.” And then Sherlock was helping John sit up slowly, and then rearranging his pillows. He smelled good, so good that John leaned over carefully and buried his nose in Sherlock’s suprasternal notch, breathing in deeply. He heard Sherlock’s huff of laughter as the greaser continued to rearrange his pillows.

“You made me hurt,” John sighed into Sherlock’s collarbone.

Sherlock went stiff beneath him, and John drew back, alarmed. Sherlock’s face was twisted into a frown. John watched as Sherlock took a deep breath, but instead of saying something, he simply pushed lightly on John’s chest. “Lean back,” Sherlock said, and his voice was quiet.

John obeyed automatically, tilting back into the pile of pillows Sherlock had arranged. He let out a low moan of appreciation as the aching in his shoulder was mostly relieved. He opened his eyes and looked at Sherlock from underneath his eyelashes. “You could kiss me again,” he said. The medication had lowered most of his inhibitions, and for the first time he didn’t feel a single shred of embarrassment as he thought about their heated snog in the alley.

Another huffed laughed forced its way out of Sherlock’s throat. “I don’t think that’d be a good idea right now,” he said, dragging John’s desk chair across the room to sit next to the bed. John frowned. He wanted to reach out and take Sherlock’s hand, but his left arm was immobilized by the sling, and the right side of his bed was nestled up against the wall. Sherlock seemed to realize what he wanted, though, and stretched a thin arm across the bed to take John’s right hand.

John sighed happily, letting his head fall back against the pillows and his eyes close once more. “I’m still mad at you,” he hummed, sounding not at all angry.

Sherlock’s hand tightened for the briefest of moments before his fingers relaxed again. “I know,” Sherlock said after a few moments. “I don’t think you should be, but I can see why.”

John hummed again. “You were rude, and ab-...ar-”

“Abrasive, I think, is the word you’re looking for,” Sherlock said, and his tone was sharper now. “I know, that’s what I _am_.” And then he was tearing his hand away. John opened his eyes in surprise, watching as Sherlock paced up and down the short length of John’s bedroom, scrubbing his hands through his short curls. “I’m abrasive, rude, socially inept, a monster, a _freak_ ,” Sherlock spat the last word. He spun around and focused his gaze, quicksilver in the late night gloom, on John. “I’m not what you want, and I can never _be_ what you want, John Watson,” he said, and his scowl would have scared away the mightiest of foes.

John’s brow furrowed. “But--”

“Don’t!” Sherlock snapped. “Don’t deny it. You made it quite plain at the doctor’s house.”

The room was silent for several moments.

“Then...why’d you come tonight?”

The single question seemed to suck all of the fight out of Sherlock. His eyes tore from John to look at the ground, and his shoulders rounded in submission.

After what seemed like an eternity, Sherlock spoke. When he did, his voice was soft. “Because you are the most intriguing person I have ever met,” he said, the confession a whisper. He looked up once more, eyes boring into John’s. “I should have lost interest in you before Lestrade arrived at the police box on the night of Annabel Howard’s party. And I did.” Sherlock took a deep breath, his voice shuddering slightly. “But then you came after me. You demanded my help to find Godfrey. I was bored, so I accepted. And then you came with me. You came with me on my investigations, and you weren’t a hinderance. I liked having you there. It was...good.” Sherlock’s brow furrowed suddenly, and he looked away. “That’s why I came on that Thursday night. You seem to be able to calm my mind.”

Sherlock looked up again, his pale eyes meeting John’s once more. “No one’s been able to do that before.”

John swallowed around the lump in his throat. He wasn’t sure what they had given him at the hospital, but he hoped it wouldn’t affect his memory of this.

Sherlock sighed. “Most people are boring. I can know everything about them in a handful of minutes, if I’m so inclined. But not you. You’re an enigma wrapped in a puzzle, and never have I wanted to spend time figuring out what makes a person work like I do with you.”

John stared at Sherlock. “I wish my shoulder was not fractured,” he said solemnly.

Sherlock stared back at him for a moment. Then, a brilliant smile broke over his face. “You _are_ a puzzle, John Watson,” he said. Then, Sherlock dipped close and pressed his lips to John’s, briefly, softly, just like John had wanted to. When he pulled away, John whined and tried to chase after him. The resulting shock of pain through his shoulder twisted the noise into a groan, and Sherlock tutted softly while pushing him back to lie on his pillows. “Plenty of time for that later,” he said. “Right now, you should sleep. You’ll heal faster.”

John made an annoyed noise in the back of his throat, even as he allowed Sherlock to arrange him on the bed.

“Shut up. You’re of no use to me when you can’t move without being in pain,” Sherlock snapped. He moved with efficiency now, the softness that had come with his emotions apparently disappearing as suddenly as the conversation.

Perhaps it was because he was still doped up on some pain medication, but John found that he didn’t quite care.  “Come visit me tomorrow?” he asked, speaking through a yawn as it fought its way out of his mouth.

Sherlock, apparently satisfied with how his shoulder was propped up, stepped back. “You’re the least annoying option for filling my day, so yes, probably,” he said. When John frowned at him, Sherlock sighed. “I’m not a romantic, John. I’m sure you’re plenty enough of one for the two of us.”

John tried to look annoyed, but sleep was quickly overtaking him. “You’re an arse,” he mumbled.

“I am indeed,” Sherlock agreed. “I’m afraid it’s not a very good quality. Perhaps you’ll help me with that.”

The sound of the window sliding closed was the last sound that registered in John’s mind before he fell asleep, a smile on his face.

***

“Do you really ride that motorbike home every day? With a broken shoulder and all?”

John snorted. “It’s better than a bus, mate,” he said to Mike, who was a kind enough soul to help him get to his locker and sort his textbooks out. Heaven forbid Sherlock, his secret boyfriend and the person who actually took him home, bother to help.

Mike rolled his eyes, but accepted John’s biology book to stuff into John’s pack. “How much longer do you have to wear that thing?” he asked, nodding his head towards the sling that was still cradling John’s left arm.

“I’ve got an appointment in two weeks for another x-ray. They told me to take the sling off at home, and gave me a couple exercises to do to try and keep it from getting stiff.” John shut his locker with a bang, then gratefully accepted his bag from Mike. He was more than ready to do away with the sling. Four weeks had been more than enough of only having one usable arm, ta very much.

He and Mike started walking down the hallway, buzzing with other students and slamming lockers. “How much longer till you can play again?” Mike asked, shoving through a couple people to get to the door that led to the student parkway.

John snorted. “Next season, if I’m lucky. Possibly not till year after next.”

Mike groaned comically, and John laughed. The sun was bright and warm, and despite the fact that he still had another two weeks of using the sling for the majority of the day, John felt happiness bubbling inside of him.

Happiness which only increased when the roar of a motorbike cut through his and Mike’s conversation.

“Sherlock!” Mike said brightly. “How y’doing, mate?”

“Fine, Stamford,” Sherlock said, and his politeness was not entirely forced. “And you?” Of all the people in the John’s life that he would have bet on Sherlock getting along with, Mike would not have been his first bet. But he also seemed to be the only one of John’s friends Sherlock could be honestly civil with, so perhaps John was better off keeping his money away from racing grounds.

“We going somewhere today?” he asked Sherlock, throwing a leg over the bike with practiced ease.

Sherlock hummed in thought. “Molly invited me to come look at an unusual mould she found growing out back of Speedy’s. Lestrade also said he has a few cold cases he’d be willing to let me look over. Possibly interesting, but probably more lazy police work than anything.”

“Mould and finding professionals’ errors,” Mike said. “Sounds like a good time. I’ll leave you lads to it.”

“Thanks, Mike,” John said, raising his right hand in farewell as Mike walked away. “So,” he said, turning back towards Sherlock. “Mould or cold cases?”

Sherlock’s answering hum was almost drowned out by the motorbike as he cranked the engine. “I was actually thinking we might do both,” he said. “Go to Speedy’s, take a few samples, then go to Scotland Yard. I won’t be able to do anything with the samples until we get to my house later tonight.”

“Oh?” John said, raising an eyebrow that, despite Sherlock not being able to see, he was sure the greaser knew was up. “And when were you planning on telling me this is a kidnapping?”

Sherlock actually turned around so that John could see him roll his eyes. “John,” he moaned.

John laughed, bright and loud, and managed to resist the urge to lean forward and kiss the pout off of Sherlock’s lips. “Speedy’s, Yard, your house,” he said, hitching his bag up on his good shoulder a bit higher. “Drive away, greaser.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes once more, purely for John’s benefit, and turned back to face the front. “Hold on tight, square.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for a special epilogue to be posted on Friday!
> 
> You can find me on my [tumblr](http://www.lifespossibilities.tumblr.com).


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last but not least, the epilogue, in which I make good on the promise of chapter four, aka the scene I've had written since the very beginning and edited several times over to make it fit as it became clear it was the end of the story. Enjoy!

Studying, apparently, was futile. John couldn’t focus on the textbook in front of him, which didn’t bode well for tomorrow. He really needed to do well on this history test. Since he’d been running after Sherlock and tagging along on cases, his grades had started to slip. Not so badly that his mum had noticed, but enough to make him worry about averages and scholarships for uni.

John sighed, rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, then looked at the textbook afresh. He copied down a few more details he didn’t remember. Turned the page. Wrote down a little bit more.

He was just finding a good rhythm and finally settling into study mode when the sound of his window being pushed up distracted him. John looked over in time to catch Sherlock gracefully swing himself into John’s room.

“Sherlock!” John hissed, clambering up from his desk chair. John crossed towards him as Sherlock turned around and carefully slid the window back shut, then turned towards John again, a pleased smile stretched over his Cupid’s bow lips. “What are you doing here?” John whispered, painfully aware of his mother and Harry were only separated by a few thin walls.

Sherlock thrust his hands into his pockets, then shrugged. “I was bored. And you were here.” He sat down on John’s made bed, then laid down and stretched out.

John frowned. “You’re going to get dirt all over my bed,” he said.

Sherlock simply flashed him a winning grin, and John sighed. “I really can’t do anything tonight,” he said, turning back towards his desk. “I need to study.” He heard dull thumps as Sherlock’s kicked-off shoes hit the floor, then sighed again. When Sherlock was bored, there was no getting rid of him. Not that he really minded, John supposed. He could put up with having Sherlock in his room. In fact, it was probably safer to have him here than let him run about in the city. There were more than a few worrisome people that’d love to meet Sherlock in a dark alley.

With that thought, John allowed himself a smile and looked back down at his history textbook and jotted down a few notes. Turned the page. Wrote down a little bit more. The sound of Sherlock’s breathing was relaxing, but the flick of metal made John turn around in his chair.

“Oh, no sir,” he said. “You are not smoking in my bedroom.”

Sherlock paused, an unlit cig sticking out of his mouth while his lighter hovered near the tip. Long fingers snapped the lighter shut, then plucked the cigarette from between his lips. “Oh, come on, John,” he said. “Don’t be such a square.”

John rolled his eyes. “I do believe you’re the one that said I wasn’t ‘nearly as much of a square as you thought’, and I’m not having my room stink like cigs for the next three days. Out on the fire escape or none at all.”

Sherlock gave an almighty whine. John shrugged, and turned back towards his homework. “Though if you do smoke, you can be sure that my mouth isn’t coming anywhere near yours,” he added over his shoulder.

“John,” Sherlock snapped. John twisted around to face him. Sherlock was pouting, a look which was ruined by the white stick jutting out of his mouth. John raised an eyebrow. Sherlock heaved an almighty sigh, but finally complied. The problem was, when he shoved the cigarette and lighter away, he canted his hips up into the air so that he could get access to his pockets. And John was suddenly very aware of Sherlock's tight jeans, and how they hugged different parts of his lower body. Like his thighs. And his arse. And other things.

John cleared his throat and quickly turned back around. He could feel his cheeks flushing and he stared at his textbook without really seeing it. Instead, he was vividly remembering the snog that had led to his staying the night at Sherlock’s after going to the drive-in movie the week before.

If Sherlock noticed John's sudden change in demeanor, he didn't let on. Instead, the gangly boy had gotten up off of John's bed and was digging through his records. “You’ve no decent music,” Sherlock complained.

John frowned, then pulled himself himself out of his memory enough to focus on what Sherlock was saying. “My music is perfectly fine, thank you,” he snapped. The heat of his annoyance was rather taken out, though, distracted by Sherlock. His record shelf was next to his desk, and he had a lovely view of Sherlock's profile as Sherlock crouched to read the labels on the record sleeves.

_He has a nice nose,_ John thought mildly (and not for the first time) as he stared. Suddenly Sherlock's head moved, turning towards John and catching him staring. John felt heat rush to his face as Sherlock grinned in a delicious, devilish way, and winked. John forced himself to look back at his notes, unable to keep himself from smiling.

"Mmm, John," Sherlock purred, his voice a deep rumble of a sound. John was barely able to suppress a shudder. There was the sound of a record being slipped out of the sleeve and put into the player. There were a few moments before the music started playing, but then Frank Sinatra’s _Lover_ weaved through the air.

“How have you kept a fondness for _jazz_ hidden from me?” Somehow Sherlock had gotten behind John without him realizing, and John gasped when Sherlock was suddenly mouthing behind his ear.

“ _Sherlock,_ ” he breathed as sinful lips moved further down his neck.

Sherlock hummed in response, and John could feel the vibration on his skin. The sensation made him gasp again. “I’m just--” John broke off to gasp again as Sherlock nipped at his earlobe. “Full of surprises,” he choked out.

Sherlock chuckled deep in his chest. “That you are,” he said, and then Sherlock was shifting around him, pushing John’s chair away from the desk enough so that he could straddle John’s thighs, settling in and then kissing John properly. John responded in kind, his hands slipping up under Sherlock’s leather jacket and rubbing his back, hands traveling up to shoulders and shoving black leather away. Sherlock let go of John’s neck to help shove the jacket off, and then long fingers were tangling in the blonde hair at the base of John’s neck.

John gripped Sherlock’s hips tight, then sucked on his lower lip. Sherlock gave a breathy exhale, then licked into John’s mouth--

A loud thump on the wall made John and Sherlock separate with a wet noise. “Would you turn that bloody music _off!_ ” Harry screeched from her adjacent room. “ _Some_ of us are trying to sleep!”

John’s heart was in his throat as he called back, “Sorry, sorry!” His voice was a bit rougher than normal, but he banked on Harry being too tired to really notice. He looked up at Sherlock, who was still perched on his thighs. “I need to get up,” John whispered to him. He shoved a little at Sherlock’s legs. “Move.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow at him. “Give me a good reason to,” he whispered back, voice pitched, purposely, John was sure, low enough to send a shiver down John’s spine. Then he rocked his hips forward, which was a low blow and made John gasp.

John screwed his eyes closed and tried to focus on the problem at hand. “If I don’t turn the music down, Harry is going to come in here and find us,” he bit out, using every bit of his restraint not to buck up against Sherlock’s all-too-willing frame.

“What if I don’t care?” Sherlock purred, wrapping arms around John’s neck and dipping his face close enough to John’s that John could feel his curly fringe on his cheek.

“Sherlock,” John whined. “ _Please._ ”

Sherlock sighed. “I could take that an entirely different route,” he said, but finally lifted himself off of John’s lap. John fumbled himself up, then slipped around Sherlock and over to the record player. He turned the volume down so that it was almost white noise instead of actual sound playing, then turned back around to face his room. He was met with a wall of white t-shirt and pale skin.

“Do you really think I’m letting that go half-finished?” Sherlock rumbled before cupping John’s face in his hands and attaching their lips once more.

The surprised gasp that came out of John’s mouth probably wasn’t dignified in any way, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Instead he wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s waist, then dipped his hands down to grab Sherlock’s arse.

He felt Sherlock’s lips turn up in a grin against his, and the taller boy pulled back just enough to say, “You’re learning,” before their mouths were together again and Sherlock’s tongue was inside of John’s mouth and _this is going to be over far too quickly._

With that thought John was walking forward, effectively shoving Sherlock towards his bed. Sherlock went without fuss, and then they were on the bed, John straddling Sherlock as they weren't so much kissing anymore but licking into each other's mouths.

John's heart was pounding with exhilaration as he trailed from Sherlock's mouth and down his neck. His hands trailed down Sherlock’s lithe body, and John still marveled at the fact that he was allowed to touch this gorgeous creature, even after having done it multiple times over.

He lingered on Sherlock’s waist before dipping to the waistband of the tight jeans that had originally captured his attention that night. Suddenly, though, there was a hand on his wrist.

“John,” Sherlock breathed, and John was shocked at how wrecked his voice was. Sherlock nudged John’s leg with his foot, and John looked up to meet his blue grey eyes. “We both know that if this goes much further, I’m going to be far too loud for the present company,” Sherlock said, without a single ounce of modesty in his eyes.

John felt his face go red as his cheeks heated. He did, in fact, know this. And he didn’t quite fancy Harry hearing any noises that might give her any inclination as to what was happening in her little brother’s bedroom, if she didn’t have any already. He squeezed Sherlock’s hip. “Yeah,” he said, rather lamely. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, um, the walls. They’re.”

“Thin,” Sherlock finished helpfully. Then he unhelpfully pulled John’s face back down to his and sucked John’s bottom lip into his mouth. Then he unhelpfully rolled them over so that he was on top, and grinning down with a devilish smile. He lowered himself down, so John could feel that while his mouth was saying they were stopping, Sherlock’s body was still very much interested in continuing. “I could, though,” Sherlock said, “Suck you off.” John was fairly certain he stopped breathing. “You’re not near as loud as me.”

The strangled noise that came out of John’s throat begged to differ. But it didn’t stop Sherlock’s hands from skimming over his chest, with a pointed downwards direction, rucking his jumper and his shirt up around his chest.

Lithe fingers were on John’s belt buckle not nearly quick enough, and _dear God we should stop, we really need to stop_.

“Sherlock,” John started to say, but he was promptly cut off by his own groan because Sherlock had yanked his trousers and pants down at the same time, exposing his hard-on to the cool air. “We really,” John tried to say, voice faltering as Sherlock crept up his legs. “Really should...” Sherlock’s face came level with John’s cock. “Really, really shouldn’t--” John’s head slammed back into his pillow as Sherlock’s lips wrapped around him. “ _Oh, Christ,_ ” he exhaled.

Sherlock chuckled, low and dark, and John flung his forearm over his mouth to stifle the moan that poured out of his mouth. He tried to be conscious of the fact that Harry was literally just a few yards away, but as Sherlock began sucking in earnest, dark curls bobbing, it was becoming harder and harder.

John’s chest heaved as Sherlock licked the underside of his cock, slowly pulling off. “Fuck,” John whispered, one hand fisting itself in the sheets as cool air assaulted his spit-wet erection.

“Another time,” Sherlock murmured, his voice gravelly and just this side of wrecked. John’s free hand curled into a fist and went to his mouth, muffling his groan. John managed to crack his eyes open and saw Sherlock grinning devilishly at him. The greaser slowly crawled up John’s body. “My voice is affecting you,” Sherlock observed, and John only barely muffled the sound that threatened to burst out of his chest. Sherlock hummed, head dipping down to suck on John’s neck, and John’s hips bucked up on their own accord. Sherlock continued his path up the straining tendons with open-mouthed kisses, and John could only pray he wasn’t leaving a mark.

As Sherlock reached John’s ear, the greaser wrapped one large hand around the base of John’s cock. “Next time,” Sherlock said, his voice little more than a rumble that shot straight down John’s spine and to his already-straining cock. “We’ll _fuck,_ ” Sherlock whispered hotly, timing the expletive with a solid stroke, and that was it, John was done.

Several toe-curling moments later, after the whiteness had faded from behind his eyes, John slowly became aware of his surroundings again. It took effort, but he managed to pry his eyes open. Sherlock was propped up on one elbow beside him, smiling unabashedly. John huffed out a breath at him, turning his head towards the ceiling as his eyes drifted closed again. “Was I terribly loud?” he managed to mumble.

Sherlock chuckled, still low and more than half in his sex voice. “You were sufficiently quiet, I assure you,” he murmured. John felt the mattress shift as Sherlock rolled off his bed, and he made some feeble noise of dissent. “I’ll just be a moment,” Sherlock said, and then there was the barely perceptible sounds of his socked feet padding out of John’s room.

Satisfied that Sherlock was coming back, John drifted for a few moments, feeling warm and satiated as he waited for the greaser’s return.

It seemed that those few moments were enough for him to drift off. The next thing he was aware of was a warm, damp flannel on his stomach, cleaning up the worst of the stickiness. He pulled his eyes open, blinking away his bleariness and Sherlock manhandled him into a sitting position, then went about yanking his jumper over his head.

“Should I...?” John said vaguely, gesturing towards the obvious bulge in Sherlock’s obscene jeans that had started everything.

Sherlock batted John’s hand away, then went about undoing the buttons on John’s shirt with a ruthless efficiency. “It’s fine, John,” he said, shoving the button up down John’s shoulders and whipping it towards the laundry bin. “Just transport. It’ll go away.”

John hummed, laying back down on the bed and lazily kicking his trousers and pants the rest of the way off. “If it’s just transport,” he mused, “and you have complete control over your transport, then how come you can’t control how loud you are?”

A lazy smile on his face, John watched as Sherlock opened his mouth to say something, seemed to find himself unable to come up with an answer, and then wrench his jaw shut with an audible _click_. John chuckled, and Sherlock through an angry scowl his way. “I never said I had complete control over it,” Sherlock snapped, but there was no real bite to his words as he turned around to pull a set of pajamas out of John’s dresser drawer.

John smiled more broadly at him, even when the sleep clothes were hurled at his head. He laughed, and Sherlock’s scowl faded a bit. “D’you wanna stay the night?” John asked, tugging his shirt over his head and then canting his hips up to yank the pants up. “Just...y’know. Sleep. Here. With me?”

Sherlock’s scowl disappeared entirely, and his expression seemed to lean towards fond as he sighed. “I don’t suppose there’s much of a way out of it?” he said lightly, already sitting on the edge of the bed and going to pull off his socks.

John hummed, wrapping a hand around Sherlock’s arm and letting it wander around to rub his back through the thin white t-shirt. “There is if you don’t want to stay,” John said sleepily.

The smile that was thrown over Sherlock’s shoulder dismissed any such notions, and John felt his lips turning up into a grin as Sherlock stood to shimmy off his jeans, then crawl back onto the bed in just his t-shirt and boxers. With a careful yank, Sherlock pulled the covers out from under John’s body and then up to cover both of them.

John’s twin bed had not been made to host two teenage boys, but John didn’t care, and Sherlock hardly seemed to mind. They wrapped around each other, shifting until they were comfortable enough for John to begin drifting off.

“You have changed me, John Watson,” Sherlock murmured into John’s hair.

John smiled as Sherlock’s words from several months previously tumbled through his mind. _You’re an enigma wrapped in a puzzle, and never have I wanted to spend time figuring out what makes a person work like I do with you._ And perhaps they weren’t quite there with emotions and being able to talk things out, but they were only teenagers. They still had whole lives in front of them. John pressed a sleepy kiss to Sherlock’s collarbone, and didn’t think again as he drifted to sleep.

***

Rustling roused John early the next morning. He rolled over onto his other side, and found pleasant warmth. He sighed and settled down into the sheets, dozing off again. He truly woke up a while later, feeling well-rested and happy. John rolled over to his side and glanced at his alarm clock. He was up ten minutes early.

John smiled and got out of bed.

Later, after he was dressed and as he left his room for breakfast, he noticed a piece of paper stuck on his record player. Curious, he picked it up.

_Your music selections are still deplorable, with the exception of that Sinatra record. SH_

John grinned, stuck the note in his pocket, and went out to eat breakfast.


End file.
